SUBMISSION: National Strategy for Food Security in Remote First Nations Communities
National Strategy for Food Security in Remote First Nations Communities, submission call out.
The Australian Government is developing a national strategy for food security in remote First Nations communities (the Strategy) in partnership with state and territory governments and First Nations health organisations. Submissions closed in August 2024.
The 8 focus areas of the National Strategy for Food Security in Remote First Nations Communities discussion paper.
Strategy Partners developed a discussion paper drafted around eight focus areas impacting the remote food system – Country; Health; Housing; Families and Community Infrastructure; Stores; Supply Chains; Healthy Economies; and Policies, Practice and Governance.
The purpose of the discussion paper was to support interested stakeholders in providing their views on the design of the Strategy.
You can access the discussion paper here.
Our Submission
Healthabitat offered a submission, focusing on ‘Housing’. We encouraged the discussion to broaden to the entire living environment and use of the 9 Healthy Living Practices (9HLPs) as a holistic framework for health.
We believe current Housing for Health data can offer valuable insights into the development of the strategy, in particular Housing for Health (HfH) data on HLP4: the ability to store, prepare, and cook food across the Northern Territory (NT) and Australia.
We recognise the expertise of many organisations in Aboriginal housing but emphasise there is a critical need for evidence-based data collection on house function and targeted, ongoing repairs and maintenance programs linked to health priorities.
Utilising HLP4 National and NT data, the submission discusses what the data reveals about people’s ability to store, prepare and cook food and key areas to prioritise to improve people’s ability for healthy living practices. Through the submission, we also offer tangible recommendations in the areas of Design & Specification and Maintenance.
Interestingly, among many of the data interrogations in the submission, we were able to collate our dataset of over 10,000 houses to look at the impact of ARIA ie. level of remoteness (Urban vs. Very remote) on house function. A graph worth checking out.
You can access the submission here.
Submission Excerpt (pg 10) Healthabitat diagram showing areas of the kitchen above 900mm eligible to be counted as ‘storage’. The amount of storage should be relative to the size of the house, i.e. A house with 4 bedrooms (or more), should have greater than 5sqm of storage above 900mm to pass this criterion.
