Geographic factors predict wild food and nonfood NTFP collection by households across four African countries

Abstract

Wild foods and other nonfood NTFPs are important for improving food security and supplementing incomes in rural peoples' livelihoods. However, studies on the importance of NTFPs to rural communities are often limited to a few select sites and are conducted in areas that are already known to have high rates of NTFP use. To address this, we examined the role of geographic and household level variables in determining whether a household would report collecting wild foods and other nonfood NTFP across 25 agro-ecological landscapes in Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Ghana. The aim of this study was to contribute to the literature on NTFP collection in Africa and to better understand where people depend on these resources by drawing on a broad range of sites that were highly variable in geographic characteristics as well as rates of NTFP collection to provide a better understanding of the determinants of NTFP collection. We found that geographic factors, such as the presence of forests, non-forest natural areas like grasslands and shrublands, and lower population density significantly predict whether a household will report collecting NTFP, and that these factors have greater explanatory power than household characteristics

Born to Eat Wild: An Integrated Conservation Approach to Secure Wild Food Plants for Food Security and Nutrition

“…Given that many WFPs grow in agricultural systems (as weeds, in hedge rows, as wild trees in agroforestry systems, and in small forest patches [ 5 , 21 ]), agricultural change, including intensification, more pesticide use and removal of trees can threaten the existence of these biological resources [ 12 , 14 , 95 ]. Food production systems that pollute the environment by using large quantities of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, are also major causes of biodiversity loss [ 45 , 88 , 96 ].…”

Urban foraging: Land management policy, perspectives, and potential

“…Foraging in developing cities may contribute significantly to urban poverty alleviation [23], contributing on average 20% of the household income among the urban poor [24]. Implicitly, the prevalence of foraging is contingent upon household access to green spaces [25,26]. Citizen access to urban green spaces may be constrained by uninformed planning [7,27], socioeconomic bias [28], historical legacy [29], and ambiguous policy [30].…”

Regulated access to wild climbers has enhanced food security and minimized use of plastics by frontline households at a premier African protected area

“…The use of plastic products might however be challenging to mitigate since as the results show, plastic products have a significantly higher food storage capacity than wild climber products. Nevertheless, the higher durability of the wild climber products may be a lucrative option to the households because, durability not only allows multiple re‐use of the products, but also saves households from recurrent spending of money as is the case with the less durable plastic products (Cooper et al, 2018).…”

“…In rural communities particularly those in developing countries, adequate food availability is often hampered by lack of suitable food harvesting, processing and storage facilities (Cunningham, 2001; Kumar & Kalita, 2017; Muhwezi, Cunningham, & Bukenya‐Ziraba, 2009; Nukenine, 2010), with direct consequences on household food security. As a solution, rural households especially those living adjacent to tropical forested protected areas (PAs) often harvest wild climbers (vines and lianas) as raw materials for food harvesting, processing and storage products (Cooper et al, 2018; Muhwezi et al, 2009; Poppy et al, 2014).…”