Remote island community in Vanuatu making headlines after declaring war on foreign "junk food"

A remote province in northern Vanuatu has made international headlines after island leaders imposed a ban on junk food in an effort to safeguard the future health of their people.

Tourism leader, Father Luc Dini, says they want the population of Torba to embrace local organic produce instead and protect themselves from the illnesses associated with western food.

He has had junk food removed from the shelves of local stores and from holiday bungalows, and tourists are being served only locally grown products.

Tony Wilson, the editor of the Vanuatu Independent, which broke the story, says it's been picked up by news outlets all over the world.

“It even appeared in the Irish Times can you believe. People have to realise that the problems we have here with diabetes is an absolute scourge in the South Pacific and Vanuatu is amongst the worst of all those countries and we just have to take some drastic action and they decided there they would,” Wilson said.

Torba has a population of about 10,000 people and is made up of mostly subsistence farmers.