Vanuatu kava growers at work Photo: Hilaire Bule
Kiribati was the world's largest consumer of Vanuatu kava in 2024.
The Vanuatu Daily Post reported that last year the country imported 280 metric tonnes of kava from Vanuatu.
Michael Louze, former chairman of the Vanuatu Kava Industry and a kava exporter to the United States, said when you break it down, it's about four kilograms of kava per person annually if half the population drinks.
"Some drink more, some less. But even at that level, it's a solid figure for a country this size."
In 2023, China was the world's largest importer of raw kava, but 99 per cent of it went towards extract production for re-export.
"China was never a market for kava," Louze said.
"It made more sense for the bulk product to go through China. But in Kiribati, it's different. They're drinking it - no processing, no re-export. Pure consumption."
But one Kiribati kava bar owner, Kantaake Robapi, said there's too many of them now.
"Each village has a kava bar. There are too many kava bars in Kiribati.
"You pay AUD$150 [approximately US$97] for a licence. The Ministry of Health checks the premises - the toilets, tools for cleaning kava. Once they approve, you pay your fee to the Tarawa council."
Kiribati's Minister for Women, Youth and Sports, Ruth Cross Kwansing, has raised concerns about kava's effects on society.
Kwansing told the ABC the impact of high kava consumption is being felt at homes.
"If fathers aren't home with their children and their wives, then obviously they're not looking after their families and their children," she said.
"If they're spending all the money on kava, then where's the funds that the family needs for food and basic essentials?"
She said men were exhausted from late-night kava drinking and not able to cut toddy or go out fishing and were not productive at home.
Meanwhile, Tonga is calling on fellow Pacific kava producers to follow its lead in restricting the export of kava for extraction - a move that has sparked strong pushback from Vanuatu and Fiji, the region's two largest kava exporters.
Tonga's positioncomes from concerns over cultural erosion and potential misuse, and promotes the idea that kava should only be consumed in its traditional, drinkable form - not processed into extracts for capsules, powders, or supplements abroad.
There's also worries about a shortage in Vanuatu.
Louze linked the shortage to several causes: the increasing number of kava farmers joining seasonal work programmes in Australia and New Zealand, damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Harold on Pentecost in 2020, and growing demand in the Port Vila market.
A kava plant takes more than five years to mature before it can be harvested.
"People in Port Vila are consuming tons of kava every week, but they are not planting it," he said.
"The population is growing rapidly, and more young men and women are drinking kava daily."
But he also said farmers cannot go wrong with planting kava with demand both locally and internationally growing, and prices have never been so high.
