Wild foods and household food security responses to AIDS: evidence from South Africa

Abstract

Wild foods may offer unique benefits to households afflicted by AIDS, providing a nutritious and freely available food source at minimal labour and financial costs. This article presents the results of food security assessments in two rural South African sites. Detailed household dietary recalls from 227 households, combined with qualitative work, explored the association of household AIDS proxies (recent morbidity, mortality and orphan fostering) with household food security and dietary composition. The study found that AIDS-proxy households were significantly more food insecure, and households fostering orphans were both poorer and more food insecure. Wild foods were evident in 40.3% of the 48 h recalls, with significantly greater likelihood of use in households with fostering paternal orphans, and/or with at least one AIDS proxy. Only paternal orphans were significantly associated with likelihood of using wild foods when controlling for household socio-economic status. Qualitative data suggests that households afflicted by AIDS might curtail their use of wild foods due to household labour shortages and stigma. This is unfortunate, as regressions indicate that households using wild foods may be more economically resilient. This may be particularly important for households registering AIDS proxies, due to a demonstrated negative correlation between accumulated household AIDS proxies and household income.

Understanding the contribution of wild edible plants to rural social-ecological resilience in semi-arid Kenya

“…As discussed above, WEP consumption often increases during hungry seasons and times of food crisis, but these results show a more general, year-round association of food-insecure families using WEPs as a coping mechanism. Other studies have found similar relationships, where wild foods are used by chronically food-insecure households on a daily basis to supplement nutrition, increase food volume, and stave off hunger (Harris and Mohammed 2003), especially for vulnerable groups such as AIDS-affected families, widows, and the landless (Campbell 1990, Grivetti and Ogle 2000, Kaschula 2008, Fentahun and Hager 2009, FAO 2011a.…”

Exploring antiretroviral treatment adherence in an urban setting in South Africa

“…7,8 Indira had sufficient resources to adhere because of a disability grant; she also had a supportive family. In contrast, Danisa, although committed to ensuring her health and never having missed a clinic visit, was unable to adhere due to insufficient food.…”

Forests and Food Security: What’s Gender Got to Do with It?

“…However, emerging case studies and reviews of the issue parallel insights from earlier work on gender divisions of labor in natural resource management [5,13,29]. Harvesting forest-based foods, especially vitamin-rich foods that supplement household consumption, is often considered "women's work" [4,8,51,76]. Case studies in Africa and elsewhere show that women living near forests in the developing world are often responsible for collecting fuelwood and other subsistence products [77].…”

“…3 Forests may not directly contribute a significant percentage of calories in rural diets, but new evidence suggests that forests may play a role in preventing "hidden hunger"-micronutrient deficiencies that affect billions [47]. Forest foods are a source of valuable micronutrients like iron, vitamin A, vitamin C, folate, calcium and others [4,[48][49][50][51][52]. Consumption of diverse wild plant and animal foods is associated with adequate nutrition in many cases [4,43,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59].…”