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Review
The roles and values of wild foods
in agricultural systems
Zareen Bharucha and Jules Pretty*
Interdisciplinary Centre for Environment and Society and Department of Biological Sciences,
University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, UK
Almost every ecosystem has been amended so that plants and animals can be used as food, fibre,
fodder, medicines, traps and weapons. Historically, wild plants and animals were sole dietary com-
ponents for hunter – gatherer and forager cultures. Today, they remain key to many agricultural
communities. The mean use of wild foods by agricultural and forager communities in 22 countries
of Asia and Africa (36 studies) is 90 –100 species per location. Aggregate country estimates can
reach 300–800 species (e.g. India, Ethiopia, Kenya). The mean use of wild species is 120 per com-
munity for indigenous communities in both industrialized and developing countries. Many of these
wild foods are actively managed, suggesting there is a false dichotomy around ideas of the agricul-
tural and the wild: hunter– gatherers and foragers farm and manage their environments, and
cultivators use many wild plants and animals. Yet, provision of and access to these sources of
food may be declining as natural habitats come under increasing pressure from development, con-
servation-exclusions and agricultural expansion. Despite their value, wild foods are excluded from
official statistics on economic values of natural resources. It is clear that wild plants and animals
continue to form a significant proportion of the global food basket, and while a variety of social
and ecological drivers are acting to reduce wild food use, their importance may be set to grow as
pressures on agricultural productivity increase.
Keywords: wild foods; hunters and gatherers; conservation; ecosystem services
1. INTRODUCTION
‘Any bloke hungry in this country just silly’
(Yarralin man, Northern Territory, Australia:
in Bird Rose 1996), p. 99
‘What do you mean by weeds? There is nothing like
a weed in our agriculture’
(Woman farmer, Deccan plateau, India:
in Mazhar et al. 2007), p. 18.
Globally, an estimated 1.02 billion people are
undernourished (FAO 2009). The literature on
vulnerability, food security and ecosystem services
has tended to emphasize cultivated foods (MEA
2005;Ericksen et al. 2009). However, there is substan-
tial evidence that wild foods are an important part of
the global food basket. At regional and national level,
food balances guide policies on trade, aid and the
declaration of food crises. Notably absent from these
is the contribution made by wild edible species. With
the routine underestimation of wild foods comes the
danger of neglecting the provisioning ecosystems and
supportive local knowledge systems that sustain these
food chains (Grivetti & Ogle 2000;Mazhar et al.
2007;Pilgrim et al. 2008).
We summarize the best available evidence for the
importance and values of wild foods (see Scoones
et al. 1992;Heywood 1999;Posey 1999;MEA 2005;
Kuhnlein et al. 2009).
2. HUNTER– GATHERERS, FORAGERS,
FISHERS AND CULTIVATORS
(a)Stereotypes
A central assumption about non-agricultural societies
has been that they represent an earlier stage of cultural
evolution, or the outcome of cultural devolution
(Barnard 1999). It was long supposed that cultures
progressed from hunter– gatherer to agricultural to
industrial. Beginning with Hobbes’s 1651 observation
that the life of ‘natural man’ was ‘solitary, poore, nasty,
brutish and short’, cultural evolutionary views—
distinguishing between ‘natural’ and ‘civilized’
peoples—persisted from the eighteenth to the late
twentieth centuries (Meggers 1954;Lathrap 1968).
Lathrap, for example, uses terms such as devolution,
degradation and wreckage of former agricultural
societies to describe communities in the Amazon that
engage in hunting, gathering and foraging (Barnard
1999).
Evidence has revealed the limitations of these
perspectives (Kent 1989;Kelly 1995). The landmark
Man the Hunter conference and book (Lee & DeVore
*Author for correspondence (jpretty@essex.ac.uk).
While the Government Office for Science commissioned this review,
the views are those of the author(s), are independent of Government,
and do not constitute Government policy.
One contribution of 23 to a Theme Issue ‘Food security: feeding the
world in 2050’.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010) 365, 2913–2926
doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0123
2913 This journal is #2010 The Royal Society
1968) showed hunter–gatherers to be rich, knowl-
edgeable, sophisticated and above all different from
one another. There was no single stage of human
development, just different adaptations to ecological
and social circumstances. It is now better accepted,
though not universally, that cultures are adapted to
localities, and thus are configured with a wide variety
of land uses and livelihoods. As a result, foraging
and farming across the world are actually ‘overlapping,
interdependent, contemporaneous, coequal and
complementary’ (Sponsel 1989). This suggests that
many rural people and their cultures might be better
known as variants of cultivator–hunters or farmer–
foragers rather than just farmers or hunter – gatherers.
Culture and nature are thus bound together (Berkes
1999;Pretty et al. 2010).
Another long-standing stereotype suggests that
hunter– gatherers are nomadic and cultivators seden-
tary. Again, the evidence shows a bewildering array
of adaptations and cultural choices. Some horticultur-
alists move, some hunter–gatherers are sedentary
(Vickers 1989;Kelly 1995). Some groups maintain
gardens for cultivated food as well as to attract ante-
lopes, monkeys and birds for hunting (Posey 1985).
Many apparently hunter – gatherer and forager cultures
farm; many agricultural communities use large num-
bers of non-domesticated resources. The Hohokam
are well-known as sophisticated canal irrigators and
desert farmers of the American southwest, yet they
were hunters, gatherers and foragers too. Szuter &
Bayham (1989) thus observed that the ‘convenient
labels of hunter– gatherer or farmer are of minimal
value... The two activities are complementary’.
(b)The management of non-agricultural
environments
What has also become clear is that farmers, hunters,
gatherers, fishers and foragers do not simply take
resources from a compliant environment. They
manage and amend resources in much the same way
as is standard practice on farms (table 1). Foragers
maintain resources by intentional sowing of wild
seeds, irrigation of stands of grasses, burning to stimu-
late plant growth, selective culling of game animals
and fish, replanting of portions of roots, enrichment
planting of trees and extraction of only parts of honey-
combs so that sites are not deserted by bees (Steward
1938;Lawton et al. 1976;Woodburn 1980;Kelly
1995). All these activities have agricultural equiva-
lents, and are variously designed to increase the
productivity and stability of useful plants and animals.
Many cultures and groups directly manage trees on
and off the farm. The forest islands of Amazonia were
found by Posey (1985) to have emerged as a result of
Kayapo directly planting-up mounds. In the lower
Amazon, smallholder farmers enrich the forests with
desirable fruit, timber and medicinal trees, often broad-
casting seeds when cutting timber (Brookfield &
Padoch 2007). In dryland Kenya, Acacia tortilis tree
recruitment occurs on the sites of abandoned pastoral-
ist corrals that are high in organic matter and nutrients
from the penned livestock. Acacia seedpods are a
favoured fodder, and some pass through the animals
to then germinate in the next season. The result is cir-
cular woodlands of dense Acacia (Reid & Ellis 1995;
Berkes 1999). In China, there is widespread use of
wild trees in integrated systems of land management,
and wild plants and animals are gathered from a var-
iety of microenvironments, such as dykes, woods,
ponds and irrigation ditches (Li Wenhua 2001).
Farmers also widely transplant species from the
wild. In northern Nigeria, they plant Hibiscus on
field boundaries; in South Africa, wild fruit trees and
edible herbs are grown on farms; and in northeastern
Thailand, a quarter of all the 159 wild food species
gathered from field boundaries, irrigation canals,
swamps and roadsides are transplanted and propa-
gated by rice farmers (Price 1997;High &
Shackleton 2000;Harris & Mohammed 2003).
Home gardens are particularly important for many
rural smallholders, and are notably diverse, sometimes
containing more than 200 useful species (Eyzaguirre &
Linares 2004). In northeast Thailand, 88 per cent of
home gardens contain wild species. Home gardens
are often a refuge for wild species threatened by defor-
estation and urbanization, and in periods of drought
when the wild relatives suffer, those surviving in the
home gardens provide considerable additional value
to farm households.
Burning is a widespread management practice. Aus-
tralian Aborigines call it ‘firestick farming’, and used
fire to make the ‘country happy’, to keep it ‘clean’
(Bird Rose 1996). Burning allowed people to walk
without fear of snakes and the nuisance of grass
seeds; it created new food for kangaroos and wallabies;
and made it easy to see animal tracks and burrows.
The observation of smoke is still taken to be a sign
that the country is healthy. Burning was also
common in North America, helping to create the
‘parkland’ type environments of Yosemite and Vancou-
ver Island, and used by plains groups to increase herd
size on the prairies (Berkes 1999;Lee & Daly 1999).
To many cultures, the ideas of wild, wildlife and
wilderness remain problematic. The term wild is com-
monly used today to refer to ecosystems and situations
where people have not interfered, yet we now know
that people influence, interfere with and manage
most if not all ecosystems and their plants and animals.
In Papua New Guinea, wild and domesticated pigs are
central to many subsistence strategies (Rosman &
Rubel 1989). Wild pigs are hunted and managed:
boars and sows are brought together to breed, females
are followed to their nests, litters and piglets removed
for raising, and wild pigs are fed with sago and roots.
Some groups raise extra gardens of sweet potatoes
just for pigs. Forest-dwelling cassowaries are never
bred, but their chicks are captured, tamed and
raised. Similar merging of the wild and raised occurs
in reindeer (caribou) herding and hunting
communities of Siberia (e.g. Evenki, Anderson 1999).
What is common in all cases is that people pay close
attention to what the land is telling them. Such knowl-
edge and understanding is then encoded into norms,
rules, institutions and stories, and thus forms the
basis for continued adaptive management over gener-
ations (Basso 1996;Pretty 2007;Berkes 2009). This
knowledge is an important capital resource. The
2914 Z. Bharucha & J. Pretty Review. Wild foods in agricultural systems
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010)
result is a huge variety of subsistence strategies that
vary spatially as well as over time (Kelly 1995).
(c)Farmers and wild foods
In both agricultural and hunter –gatherer systems,
there are no easy distinctions between ‘wild’ and
‘cultivated’ foods. While food research and policy
tend to consider these separately, the differences are
rarely mirrored by local communities. Plant foods
can thus be envisioned as ‘existing along a continuum
ranging from the entirely wild to the semi-domesti-
cated, or from no noticeable human intervention to
selective harvesting, transplanting, and propagation
Table 1. The management of non-agricultural ecosystems by farmers, hunter – gatherers and foragers. Sources: Kent (1989),
Rosman & Rubel (1989),Kelly (1995),Bird Rose (1996),Bale
´e (1998),Fowler & Turner (1999),Kehoe (1999), Pretty
(2002,2007), Harris & Mohammed (2003),Anderson & Nuttall (2004), Berkes (1999,2009), Brookfield & Padoch
(2007), Stephenson & Mo¨ller (2009) and Heckenberger (2009).
practice detail
agricultural
equivalent examples
harvesting and
hunting
hunting of particular species or
individuals, at particular times
crop harvesting muttonbird (sooty shearwater)
gathering by Maori
sparing young animals and fish livestock raising aboriginal caretakers
rotational hunting and no-take zones
closed fishing areas and closed
beaver bosses of Cree, rested
hunting and trapping areas
season
allowing portion of fish catch to
escape
sparing lead caribou individuals (as
have knowledge of migration
routes)
taboos and rituals for certain people
and animals
Pacific island closed fishing areas
and seasons
nomination of stewards to regulate
hunting
planting enrichment planting of fruit and
medicinal trees in forests and home
gardens
planting of
domesticated seeds
tree, palm and bamboo enrichment
by Amazonian cultures
aboriginal wild gardens
scattering seeds and roots distribution and reproduction of
replacing portions of roots mongongo nut trees by San
replanting of propagules transplanting willow for basketry by
selectively tended wild gardens Shoshone
agroforestry on and off farms
raising animals selective culling and sparing raising domesticated managing wild pigs in Papua New
transplanting eggs and young animals Guinea
feeding young animals
nutrient additions human and animal wastes near
settlements
mulching and charcoal as soil
amendments
fertilizer, compost,
animal manure
pastoralist corrals in Sub-Saharan
Africa leading to Acacia
woodlands
wild pig management in Papua New
feed for fish and wild pigs Guinea
pest management protection by removal of weeds, pests
or predators
pest management management of oyster beds in UK
habitat amendment
and creation
coppicing and thinning of trees to
increase yields and biodiversity
habitat amendment
for agriculture
swidden agriculturalists
farmers creating ponds for fishing or
creation of ponds and fleets wildfowling in UK
creation of maize and sorghum game
cover
farmers maintaining woodland and
game cover for shooting
clearing of forest glades
creation of rock cairns to attract lizards
creation of hunting gardens
water management diversion of streams to irrigate wild
strands of grasses
irrigation
drainage
irrigation by Hohokam in USA
channel diversion for fish trapping
clearing of stream-beds for fish
spawning
fire use burning to increase grass yields to
encourage game, reveal burrows and
tracks
burning crop
stubbles and straw
clearing swiddens
firestick farming by Australian
Aborigines
creation of parklands by Native
broadcasting seeds of annuals and
perennials after burning
burning heather
moors
Americans (Yosemite and
Vancouver Island)
burning of prairies by Blackfoot to
improve grasses for wild herds
Review. Wild foods in agricultural systems Z. Bharucha & J. Pretty 2915
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010)
by seed and graft’ (Harris 1989). Moreover, since
‘domestication grew out of food gathering, which
almost imperceptibly led to cultivation’, many wild
edible species can be considered to be ‘in various
stages of domestication as a result of human selection,
however slight’ (Heywood 1999). Many farmers conti-
nually blur the distinction between the cultivated and
the uncultivated (Mazhar et al. 2007).
Wild foods have long provided farmers a ‘hidden
harvest’, as they have used co-evolved species and
other wild biodiversity in and around their farms to
supplement their foods and earnings (Harris &
Hillman 1989;Scoones et al. 1992;Heywood 1999;
Grivetti & Ogle 2000). Many species are found
within the fields themselves. The harvesting of wild
species from paddy fields is an excellent example; in
Thailand, farmers harvest wild herbs, insects, trees
and vines (Price 1997;Halwart 2008); in Bangladesh,
102 species of greens and 69 of fish (Mazhar et al.
2007) are collected. In Svay Rieng, Cambodia, wild
fish from in and around paddies contribute up to 70
per cent of total protein intake as well as being a
source of income. Their relevance as a buffer against
hunger is considerable in this area since rice yields
here are among the lowest in southeast Asia (Guttman
1999). Table 2 summarizes the range of species used
by rice-based agricultural communities in four Asian
countries, with total use varying from 51 to 102
species (overall mean: 83; plants: 17; animals: 66).
Farmers also transplant species onto or near fields.
In northeast Thailand, a quarter of the 159 wild food
species gathered are deliberately propagated (Price
1997;High & Shackleton 2000;Harris & Mohammed
2003). Smallholders’ home gardens are another
example—these are notably diverse, sometimes con-
taining more than 200 useful species (Eyzaguirre &
Linares 2004).
Wild food species are declining in many agricultural
landscapes (MEA 2005). The spread of agriculture
and the homogenization of agricultural landscapes
increasingly limits the availability and use of wild
foods of nutritional importance to agricultural com-
munities, but most of all to the landless poor and
other vulnerable groups (Scoones et al. 1992;Pretty
2002). Their continued availability depends on the
maintenance of synergies between farming and wild
biodiversity (Pretty 2007;Royal Society 2009).
3. THE IMPORTANCE OF WILD FOODS
By FAO estimates, around ‘one billion people use wild
foods in their diet’ (Aberoumand 2009). Forests pro-
vide livelihoods and food for some 300 million
people in the form of non-timber forest products
(NTFPs). In general, food security and NTFPs are
strongly interlinked in rural communities, especially
for the most vulnerable groups (Belcher et al. 2005),
even among agricultural communities (Vincetti et al.
2008). Urban communities also rely on wild foods.
For instance, affluent urban households are willing to
pay 43–157% more for bushmeat in Zambia and
Mozambique (Barnett 2000). In Rajasthan, India,
wild foods benefit both urban and rural children
(Rathore 2009). Titus et al. (2009) explored the
importance of wild game in Alaska, where 80 per
cent of the population is urban, and found urban
households routinely consuming significant amounts
of wild game.
(a)The diversity of wild foods used
Food security has come to depend on a small handful
of widely cultivated species. Over 50 per cent of the
world’s daily requirement of proteins and calories
comes from three crops—wheat, maize and rice
(Jaenicke & Ho¨schle-Zeledon 2006); 12 species con-
tribute 80 per cent of total dietary intake. By
contrast, wild foods provide a greater dietary diversity
to those who rely on them. Ethnobotanical surveys of
wild plants indicate that more than 7000 species
have been used for human food at some stage in
human history (Grivetti & Ogle 2000;MEA 2005).
Some indigenous communities use over 200
(Kuhnlein et al. 2009); in India, 600 plant species
are known to have food value (Rathore 2009);
DeFoliart (1992) records 1000 species of edible
insects used worldwide. Some 1069 species of wild
fungi consumed worldwide are important sources of
protein and income (Boa 2004). Bushmeat and fish
provide 20 per cent of protein in at least 60 developing
countries (Bennet & Robinson 2000).
Additionally, wild plants in particular have diverse
uses. In Nepal, 80 per cent of 62 wild food plants
have multiple uses (Shrestha & Dhillon 2006). Tanza-
nian Batemi agro-pastoralists use species as food (31
species), thirst quenchers (six species), for chewing
(seven species), as flavourants (two species) and for
honey beer (one species). A further 35 wild edible
plants are cultivated ( Johns et al. 1996). In the
Mekong Delta and Central Vietnamese Highlands,
several wild food species are used as medicine and
livestock feed; one-fifth are used as all three (Ogle
et al. 2003).
We summarize evidence on the use of wild species
in tables 3–5. Surveys of even small sample sizes
yield surprisingly high numbers of species used.
Table 3 illustrates the use of wild foods in 12 Asian
contexts; table 4 in 10 countries across Africa. From
these 36 studies in 22 countries of Asia and Africa,
the mean use of wild foods (discounting country- or
continent-wide aggregates) is 90 – 100 species per
place and community group. Individual country
Table 2. The diversity of aquatic wild food species within
rice agroecosystems in four Asian contexts (adapted from
Halwart 2008).
Cambodia China Laos Vietnam
plants 13 20 20 15
amphibians 2 3 10 3
crustaceans 6 4 5 3
fishes 70 54 26 14
molluscs 1 5 8 7
reptiles 8 1 7 3
insects 2 — 16 6
total 102 87 92 51
2916 Z. Bharucha & J. Pretty Review. Wild foods in agricultural systems
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010)
estimates can reach 300– 800 species (India, Ethiopia,
Kenya). Table 5 illustrates the use of wild foods by 12
indigenous communities (seven agricultural; five
hunter– gatherer) across both industrialized and devel-
oping countries. The mean use of wild species is 120
per community, rising to 194 for those seven
communities formally designated as agricultural.
Wild foods are still used in industrialized
countries, though both use and traditional ecological
knowledge appear to be declining (Mabey 1996;Pil-
grim et al. 2008). In New Zealand, however, more
than 60 species are still in common use, largely
because of traditions of Maori groups. These include
muttonbird (sooty shearwater), seagull, possum,
rabbit, deer, wild pig, goat, salmon, trout, eel, water-
cress, sea lettuce, gorse and many berries (Newman
& Moller 2005;NZFSA 2007;Stephenson &
Moller 2009). In the Wallis Lake catchment, Austra-
lia, 88 species are in general use (Gray et al. 2005). In
the swamps of Louisiana, large numbers of people
still hunt and fish regularly for their own food
(Roland 2006).
(b)The nutritional value of wild foods
Malnutrition is a major health burden in developing
countries, and the recognition that nutritional security
and biodiversity are linked is fundamental for enlisting
policy support to secure wild food use and preserve
habitats for wild edible species. Comprehensive food
composition data is a critical first step (McBurney
et al. 2004;Flyman & Afolayan 2006;Frison et al.
2006). This is especially important for communities
most vulnerable to malnutrition (Misra et al. 2008;
Afolayan & Jimoh 2009). However, understanding of
wild foods’ micro- and macro-nutritional properties
currently lags behind that of cultivated species
(Vincetti et al. 2008).
Though several studies have found that wild foods
are important sources of micronutrients, their
energy-density is generally low (with the exception
of honey and high-fat organs or in-season fat depos-
its) (Samson & Pretty 2006;McMichael et al. 2007).
In the Sahel, several edible desert plants are sources
of essential fatty acids, iron, zinc and calcium (Glew
et al. 1997). In the arid Ferlo region of Senegal,
some 50 per cent of all plants have edible parts,
and those that are commonly consumed are critical
suppliers of vitamins A, B2 and C, especially
during seasonal lean periods (Becker 1983). Lockett
et al. (2000) found that among the plants used by
the Fulani in Nigeria, those available during the
dry season (and thus important for ensuring year-
round nutritional security in the face of possible
food shortages) were superior in energy and micro-
nutrient content compared with those from the wet
season.
The contribution of dietary energy from traditional
food species in 12 indigenous communities has been
found to range from 30% to 93% of total dietary
energy (Kuhnlein et al. 2009). For many indigenous
communities, especially Artic and sub-Arctic,
traditional wild foods outweigh modern store-bought
items in terms of nutrient content. Their gradual repla-
cement by store-bought produce causes discernable and
Table 3. The diversity of species of wild foods used in selected countries of Asia.
country area characteristics
number
of species references
Bangladesh floodplain rice farming communities 102 Mazhar et al. (2007)
Cambodia rice field agroecosystem, lower Mekong basin 20 Shams et al. (undated)
Cambodia rice field agroecosystem, Tonle Sap, Mekong basin 102 Balzer et al. (2003)
China rice field agroecosystem in Xishuangbanna, Yunan Province 92 Halwart (2008)
India general countrywide estimate 600 Rathore (2009)
India tribal/non-tribal; cultivation and livestock, deciduous forest 73 Kala (2009)
India tribal and non-tribal, transhumance and rainfed agriculture,
temperate forests
21 Misra et al. (2008)
India Mornaula Reserve Forest in western Himalaya 114 Pant & Samant (2006)
India Sikkim Himalaya 190 Sundriyal & Sundriyal (2001)
India rainfed agricultural community of Deccan Plateau; 79 species
of plants used, plus hunting of monitor lizards, wild pigs,
rabbits and fishes
79 Mazhar et al. (2007)
Jordan arid, countrywide estimate 56 Tukan et al. (1998)
Lebanon dry mediterranean, rural 6 Jeambey et al. (2009)
Mongolia steppe, nomadic pastoralists 77 Huai & Pei (2000)
Nepal rural, forest dwelling 62 Shrestha & Dhillon (2006)
Nepal Chepang community, shifting cultivation 85 Aryal et al. (2009)
Palestinian
Authority
rural agricultural communities (irrigated and rainfed) on
West Bank
100 Ali-Shtayeh et al. (2008)
Thailand irrigated rice in northeast and tropical/sub-tropical forest 159 Price (1997)
Thailand Pwo Karen community; swidden cultivation in dry mixed
deciduous forest
134 Delang (2006)
Turkey western and central Anatolia 121 Dogan et al. (2004)
Vietnam cultivation and livestock, Mekong Delta and Central
Highlands
90 Ogle et al. (2003)
Review. Wild foods in agricultural systems Z. Bharucha & J. Pretty 2917
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010)
significantly negative impacts on nutritional security at
household and community levels (Samson & Pretty
2006).
4. THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF WILD FOODS
(a)Aggregate values
There is no comprehensive global estimate of the econ-
omic value of wild foods. Quantitative analyses face
methodological difficulties. First, case studies using
different valuation methods and diverse scales are
rarely comparable. Second, sale of wild products
(particularly bushmeat) is often illegal, and therefore
under-reported. Trade is often informal or occurs at
local markets and is therefore missed by conventional
accounting mechanisms (Jaarsveld et al. 2005). The
MEA (2005) cautions that the extent of freshwater
fish catches might be under-reported by up to a
factor of two because of inaccurate measures of
informal fisheries.
While exact estimates of the economic value or
volumes involved is difficult, what is not in dispute
is that trade in and use of wild foods provide an
important supplement to general incomes and are
especially critical during economic hardship. Among
the Tsimane’ of Bolivia, only 3 per cent of goods
consumed in the household comes from the
market; a significant proportion comes from fresh-
water and forest (Reyes-Garcı
´aet al. 2008). In DR
Congo, almost 90 per cent of harvested bushmeat
and fish is sold rather than consumed (de Merode
et al. 2003). In table 6, we summarize findings
from economic valuations of direct use values for
wild foods in selected African countries. From the
limited data available, it is clear that wild plants
and animals can provide $170– 900 worth of value
to rural households in South Africa and Tanzania.
In Ghana, the bushmeat market is worth $275
million annually.
(b)Values to the poorest households
An important aspect of wild food use is the relative
importance of wild foods to poorer households. The
conventional understanding holds that poorer house-
holds depend more on wild foods. However, detailed
analyses do not show simple correlations between
wealth and resource use (de Merode et al. 2003;
Allebone-Webb 2009). A range of context-specific
social and economic factors (e.g. price, individual or
cultural preference, and wealth) are also relevant.
In some countries, household consumption of wild
foods increases with wealth—with the exception of
bushmeat in Africa (IIED & Traffic 2002). de
Merode (2003) found that the poorest households
among those sampled in DR Congo were unable to
capitalize on the most valuable food products and con-
cluded that household use of wild foods depends less
Table 4. The diversity of species of wild foods used in selected countries of Africa.
country summarized area characteristics
number
of species references
Africa continent-wide estimate (insects only) 600 DeFoliart (1992)
Africa sub-Saharan Africa (insects only) 250 van Huis (2003)
Africa Central and West Africa ( plants only) 1500 Chege (1994)
Botswana Tyua grow crops and use wild plants, animals, birds, fish and
insects
171 Hitchcock (1999)
Congo Mbuti Pygmies of forest: cultivators of cassava and plantain
plus users of 230 animal and 100 plant species
330 Ishikawa (1999)
Ethiopia subsistence agriculture, animal husbandry, semi-arid to
humid
44 Fentahun & Hager (2009)
Ethiopia country-wide estimate 203 Asfaw & Tadesse (2001)
Ethiopia country-wide estimate 300 Asfaw (2009)
Ethiopia agricultural, arid, open woodland (50% of plants in region
edible)
25 Becker (1983)
Ethiopia humid to semi-arid; forest to savannah, three ethnic groups
in south Ethiopia
66 Balemie & Kebebew (2006)
Kenya country-wide estimate for agricultural communities ( plants
only)
800 Maundu (1996)
Kenya Turkana agro-pastoralists and rural fishing communities, arid
and semi-arid
14 Levine & Crosskey (2006)
Madagascar forest-dwelling, swidden cultivation in tropical forest 150 Styger et al. (1999)
Namibia agriculture and livestock; tropical wetland, swamp and
woodland in Caprivi
21 Mulonga (2003)
Nigeria agricultural, savanna, semi-arid 121 Harris & Mohammed (2003)
Tanzania agricultural, tropical forest, East Usambara mountains 28 Kessey (1998)
Tanzania agricultural, tropical forest, East Usambara mountains 46 Ha
˚rko¨nen & Vainio-Mattila
(1998)
Tanzania Batemi agropastoralists, semi-arid (with 35 wild species
cultivated)
44 Johns et al. (1996)
Uganda agricultural households in southwest Uganda (some wild
species cultivated and gathered from the wild)
94 Musinguzi et al. (2006)
Zambia country-wide estimate 15– 25 Pegler & Piearce (1980)
2918 Z. Bharucha & J. Pretty Review. Wild foods in agricultural systems
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010)
on natural abundance than on socio-economic factors.
In Honduras, the sale of forest products as an emer-
gency response was relatively restricted to a minority
of households and only certain conditions of cash
need. Most households preferred other short-term
measures such as the sale of stored crops, borrowing
cash or doing wage labour (McSweeney 2005). Con-
sumption is also influenced by price or individual or
cultural preference.
5. DRIVERS OF CHANGE IN WILD FOOD
AVAILABILITY AND USE
There are a number of important drivers for wild food
availability and use. While some clearly increase or
decrease the use of wild foods, the impact of others
is ambiguous and context-dependent. The importance
of understanding current trends for wild foods is
underscored by the recognition that food insecurity
is a particular problem among indigenous populations
Table 5. The diversity of species of wild foods used by 12 indigenous communities (adapted from Kuhnlein et al. 2009)
a
.
no.
study area
ecosystem flora fauna
total species
usedcultural group region
1 Awajan Peruvian Amazon tropical forest 93 113 206
2 Bhil Gujarat, India tropical forest 68 23 91
3 Dalit Andhra Pradesh, India semi-arid 179 40 212
4 Karen Thungyai Naresuan National Wildlife
Sanctuary, Thailand
tropical; paddy cultivation 252 63 315
5 Mand (Pohnpei) Pacific Ocean, Federated States of
Micronesia
tropical 67 162 229
6 Igbo Southern Nigeria tropical 171 45 216
7 Ingano Colombian Amazon tropical forest x
b
92 (92 þx)
8 Ainu Saru River Valley, Japan riverine 10 3 13
9 Maasai Kajiado District, Kenya semi-arid 33 21 54
10 Inuit Canadian Territory of Nunavut polar 15 64 79
11 Nuxalk Bella Coola, British Columbia polar 42 25 67
12 Tetlit Gwich’in Canadian Arctic polar 15 35 50
a
Communities 1–7 are formally seen as farming communities.
b
Total cannot be accurately ascertained from original text as named traditional species are a mix of wild and cultivated.
Table 6. Direct use values of wild foods valued either as contributions to household consumption or income from sale
(selected African countries; 1999 – 2009). Note: GDP per capita (2009) figures in US$ (IMF 2009): DR Congo $171;
Ghana $639; Namibia $4341; South Africa $5635; Tanzania $547; Zambia $1027.
country consumption value within household sale value (in US$) reference
DR Congo bushmeat 10%, fish 16%, wild plants
6%
n.a. de Merode et al.
(2003)
DR Congo 3 – 10% of total value of food
consumed in the household
25% of all household sales de Merode et al.
(2003)
Ghana, country-
wide estimate
n.a. 305 000 tonnes wild meat sold annually
(value US$275 million)
IIED & Traffic
(2002)
Namibia 21% respondents reported bushmeat
cheaper than raised meat
wild plants value not recorded; fish:
N$350 wk
21
Mulonga (2003)
South Africa wild foods comprise 31% of all plants
on residential plots, and 72% of the
value of all plant products consumed
28% of all plant products sold:
US$269 household
21
yr
21
, of which
wild foods worth US$83
High & Shackleton
(2000)
South Africa R2819—R7238 household
21
yr
21
(wild
foods are a part)
US$367–941 household
21
yr
21
Shackleton et al.
(2002)
South Africa $167 household
21
yr
21
US$167 household
21
yr
21
Dovie et al. (2006)
Tanzania n.a. 58% of cash income from sale of
NTFPs and wild foods
Makonda & Gillah
(2007)
Tanzania US$378 household
21
yr
21
: $265 plant-
medicines; $15 wild vegetables; $27
wild fruit; $21 leaves and stems; $20
wild animals; $10 insects; $18 – 126
wild honey
Kasthala et al.
(2008)
Zambia n.a. US$2.15 kg
21
in rural areas (three to
four times more in urban areas)
Jumbe et al. (2008)
Zambia n.a. US$4 gallon
21
; during season
collectors can earn up to a month’s
salary for a general worker
Mbata et al. (2002)
Review. Wild foods in agricultural systems Z. Bharucha & J. Pretty 2919
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010)
(Ford & Berrang-Ford 2009). For instance, Willows
et al. (2009) find that of 35 000 households, 1528
of whom were aboriginal, 33 per cent of Aboriginal
households were food-insecure, compared with 9
per cent of non-Aboriginal households, and that
Aboriginal households were more prone to experi-
ence socio-demographic risk factors for food
insecurity than non-Aboriginal households. The inter-
action between drivers also deserves attention. In
assessing links between local knowledge and sociocul-
tural continuity, Howard (2010) finds that cultural
identity and agrobiodiversity are strongly associated:
‘culture and ecosystems ... co-evolve’. Thus, a bio-
physical driver (e.g. climate change) could have
knock-on effects on a cultural parameter (e.g. local
knowledge), and the effect of the two combined
could lead to either an increase or decrease in wild
food use.
(a)Wild foods in a changing climate
Forecasting the precise impacts of the changing cli-
mate on the availability of wild foods is difficult
(MEA 2005;Woodruff et al. 2006). Studying resili-
ence and vulnerability in two communities in
Tanzania and Niger, Strauch et al. (2009) concluded
that there was insufficient evidence to predict the
impacts that climate change would have on both
human foraging and the interlinked processes of
local ecological knowledge (LEK) transmission, cul-
tural continuity and land-based subsistence
livelihood.
At a regional level, White et al.’s (2007) study of the
effects of a changing climate on wild food supplies in
the Arctic focused on surface water regimes. There
were multiple impacts brought by changes in hydrol-
ogy for local communities. The stresses brought by a
changed Arctic climate are compounded by rapid
socio-cultural change in the region (Samson & Pretty
2006;Loring & Gerlach 2009). Wild food species
offer a potentially critical role for buffering against
food stress caused by a changing climate. Neverthe-
less, ‘the innate resilience of wild species to rapid
climate change, which is often lacking in exotic
species’, means that they could play an increasingly
important role during periods of low agricultural pro-
ductivity associated with climate events (Fentahun &
Hager 2009).
(b)Land use change and degradation
Current trends in land use, including expansion of
intensive agriculture, limit the capacity of ecosystems
to sustain food production and maintain the habitats
of wild food species (Foley et al. 2005). Changes in
land use and agriculture expansion have significant
implications for the availability of wild foods. The
commercialization of agriculture—an important
driver of land use change—potentially implies
decreased reliance on wild foods (Treweek et al.
2006). Agricultural and land use policy, infrastructure
development and widened access to markets all drive
land use change, and are implicated in declines of
wild species in Thailand (Schmidt-Vogt 2001;
Padoch et al. 2007) and China (Xu et al. 2009).
Biodiversity in intensely managed swidden (shift-
ing) fallows has traditionally provided communities
with the means to increase incomes, improve diets
and increase labour productivity. Most of the wild
food species used by swiddeners come from fallows,
rather than mature forests. With the replacement of
swidden farming by annual or perennial crops
(Bruun et al. 2009), wild foods that accompanied
fallows are being lost, leading to decreased diversity,
and with it downgraded nutritional status, health and
income, and the removal of a vital ‘safety net’ for the
rural poor (Rerkasem et al. 2009). Somnasang et al.
(1998) report that in 20 villages surveyed in Thailand,
deforestation had led to a decline in wild food species.
Efforts by the local community to stem this loss by
domesticating important species were unsuccessful,
as many species do not survive outside their natural
forested habitat.
Overall, the challenge of feeding a growing world
population, if it does not focus on sustainable intensifi-
cation (Royal Society 2009), will further threaten
naturally biodiverse landscapes. Yet, ensuring dietary
diversity and associated nutritional security rests on
‘forestalling the imminent extinction of up to one quar-
ter of the worlds’ wild species and the loss of important
agro-biodiversity’. This calls for a biodiversity-focused
strategy in food, public health and poverty-alleviation
policies ( Johns & Sthapit 2004).
(c)Unsustainable harvesting
Sixteen of the world’s biodiversity hotspots correspond
with areas of malnutrition and hunger, placing
pressure on biodiversity for food provision (Treweek
et al. 2006). In these locations, unsustainable harvests
have led to declines in wild food species.
The illegal use and trade of bushmeat is well docu-
mented. In the long term, over-harvesting will have a
negative impact on wild food availability and thus on
nutritional security for those communities that rely
on bushmeat for protein. In some parts of Africa,
unsustainable harvesting is putting added pressure on
stocks. An important driver is the widespread avail-
ability of firearms ( Jaarsveld et al. 2005).
Nevertheless, despite the fact that unsustainable
trade in bushmeat is regarded as a threat to wildlife,
Cowlishaw et al. (2005) found some evidence of sus-
tainable harvesting after the extinction (through
historical hunting) of key species. After vulnerable
species have been depleted, robust species (fast repro-
ducers) are then harvested and traded at sustainable
levels. Management policies might therefore benefit
from according stricter protection to key species but
allowing robust ones to continue being traded
sustainably.
Where species have traditionally been harvested
sustainably, the entry of the market and the commer-
cialization of species hitherto used exclusively for
local subsistence can also result in over-harvesting
(Kala 2009). Unsustainable harvesting is a concern
in the case of wild fisheries. At a global level, increas-
ing average per capita consumption of seafood has led
to catch rates that regularly exceed maximum sustain-
able yields (MEA 2005). Brashares et al. (2004) found
2920 Z. Bharucha & J. Pretty Review. Wild foods in agricultural systems
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010)
links between unsustainable harvesting of bushmeat
and fish stocks in Africa: years of poor fish catches
coincided with increased hunting over a 30 year
period.
(d)Deepening poverty, HIV/AIDS and conflict
In Africa, climate-induced vulnerabilities combined
with HIV/AIDS have produced a decline in food secur-
ity sufficiently great to have spurred new thinking on the
origins of famine (e.g. New Variant Famine Hypothesis:
de Waal & Whiteside 2003). Hlanze et al. (2005) state
that ‘increasingly it is becoming difficult to separate
the food security impact of drought from that of HIV/
AIDS. The two work in tandem to cause poor harvests
and reduced incomes.’ For households afflicted by HIV/
AIDS, wild foods offer nutritious dietary supplements
at low labour and financial costs. This is important
when considering the negative impact of a household’s
HIV/AIDS status on income and food security
(Kaschula 2008), together with the fact that deficiencies
of micronutrients (in which many wild foods are rich)
critical to immune-system function are ‘commonly
observed in people living with HIV in all settings’
(Piwoz & Bentley 2005). Food stress associated with
HIV/AIDS can drive households to intensify wild food
use, putting unsustainable pressure on local resources
especially when combined with deepening poverty or
indeed conflict (Dudley et al.2002). In South Africa,
Kaschula (2008) foundthatwildfoodusewas
significantly more likely in households afflicted by HIV.
However, use of wild foods could also decline due to
HIV/AIDS. For example, at one site, it was found that
‘households suffering the loss of a head of household
were actually less likely to gather from the bush’
(Hunter et al. 2009). Further relevant drivers include
the loss of ecological knowledge as adults die (Ansell
et al. 2009), declines in household labour (de Waal &
Whiteside 2003;Kaschula 2008) and the stigma
attached to HIV/AIDS (Kaschula 2008).
Armed conflict and associated internal displace-
ment of populations are associated with heavy
subsistence use of wild foods by refugees, combatants
and resident non-combatants alike, and the sale or
barter of wildlife for food (Loucks et al. 2009), arms
or other goods. Conflict—often positively correlated
with areas of high biodiversity—is generally associated
with landscape degradation (Loucks et al. 2009). It is
conceivable that this could lead to a decline in the
long-term use of wild food species. Climate change is
also predicted to increase armed conflict in some
developing countries (Buhaug et al. 2008).
(e)Loss of local ecological knowledge
LEK is required for the identification, collection and
preparation of wild foods (Pilgrim et al.2008). The dis-
tribution of LEK between individuals in a community is
usually differentiated by gender, age or social role. Sev-
eral studies show women score higher on food-related
knowledge (Price 1997;Somnasang et al.1998;
Styger et al.1999). In one Nepalese site, women
above 35 years of age were able to describe the uses
of 65 per cent of all edible species, while young
men could only describe 23 per cent (Shrestha &
Dhillon 2006). Men and women might also hold
specialized LEK. Somnasang et al.(1998)found that
while men had more knowledge of hunting and fishing,
women had more knowledge of wild food plants, insects
and shrimp. LEK is also differentiated by age: in
Ethiopia, children gather fruit for consumption by the
whole community, and unsurprisingly those under 30
had the most knowledge of wild fruits (Fentahun &
Hager 2009).
Research has pointed to declines in LEK (Pilgrim
et al. 2008) as communities rely increasingly on
store-bought foods and move away from land-based
livelihoods. Somnasang et al. (1998) found that
young people working outside the village did not
have the chance, and in some cases the desire, to
acquire food-relevant LEK. It is thus possible that as
young adults leave land-based livelihoods, knowledge
transmission to younger generations will be dimin-
ished. In other cases, individuals’ preferences change
as they grow and thus, their stock of LEK changes,
even if they remain within their community. In
Ethiopia, Fentahun & Hager (2009) found that ‘...
grown-ups succumb to the culture of the society
which regards the consumption of wild fruits (com-
monly consumed by children) as a source of shame’
(insert added). As climate change alters habitats, so
knock-on effects are expected on LEK (Strauch
et al. 2009).
(f)Socio-economic change and the
expansion of markets
The nutrition transition associated with industriali-
zation and the modernization of diets poses
challenges to public health worldwide (Popkin 1998).
The replacement of wild foods by store-bought pro-
ducts is linked to reduced dietary diversity, rising
rates of chronic lifestyle-related conditions such as
obesity and type II diabetes, poor intake of micronutri-
ents (Batal & Hunter 2007) and malnutrition (Erikson
et al. 2008). Traditional species become undervalued
and underused as exotic ones become available, as
has been found in India (Rathore 2009) and the
Amazon (Byron 2003). Yet, the importance of wild
foods to nutritional security means that they are not
necessarily replaced by store-bought foods providing
the same amount of calories. Global trends indicate
that more people will, however, come to depend
solely on store-bought, cultivated foods ( Johns &
Maundu 2006), thus marginalizing wild foods.
In regions isolated from sweeping transformations,
traditional food systems can persist. Pieroni (1999)
suggests that the geographical isolation of the upper
Serchio valley in northwest Tuscany has ‘permitted a
rich popular knowledge to be maintained’. Gastro-
nomic traditions in the valley help to preserve
influences dating from pre-Roman times and over
120 species form a well-preserved pharmacopoeia of
food and medicine. In other regions too, wild food
use seems to persist: 123 edible species are still used
in Spain (Tardı
´oet al. 2003); and in many Mediterra-
nean countries, wild foods are still prevalent enough to
be considered an important part of local diets (Leonti
et al. 2006).
Review. Wild foods in agricultural systems Z. Bharucha & J. Pretty 2921
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2010)
In the Arctic, the nutrition transition is driven by a
changing climate as well as large-scale cultural
changes. This transition produces significant negative
effects to physical and mental health at community
level (Samson & Pretty 2006;Loring & Gerlach
2009). In the Canadian Artic, children now obtain
more than 40 per cent of their total energy from
store-bought processed foods (‘sweet’ and ‘fat’
foods). In adults, however, the benefits of consuming
traditional wild foods are clear: ‘... even a single por-
tion of local animal or fish food resulted in increased
(p,0.05) levels of energy, protein, vitamin D, vita-
min E, riboflavin, vitamin B-6, iron, zinc, copper,
magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium’
(Kuhnlein & Receveur 2007). Though wild foods
have traditionally played a critical role in circumpolar
communities (Ford 2009;Ford et al. 2009;Titus
et al. 2009), public health policy across many countries
tends to operate within a model of food security that
discounts the traditional food practices of these
communities (Power 2008).
6. SECURING THE FUTURE FOR WILD FOODS
The MEA (2005) lists 250 mammalian, 262 avian and
79 amphibian species as threatened from overexploita-
tion for food. Mechanisms such as CITES regulate
cross-border trade in wild species, but require inter-
national cooperation. At national level, however,
trade is generally poorly regulated and monitored.
Challenges to sustainable harvesting include (i) lack
of comprehensive data on species used and sustainable
yields; (ii) lack of management regimes and insti-
tutions regulating ownership, access and harvesting
rights; (iii) lack of legislation and policy for sustainable
harvesting—in many cases a result of lack of infor-
mation on use and trade of species (Schippmann
et al. 2006).
Policy support is central to the conservation of
species as well as LEK. Lack of policy support for
relevant programmes has been implicated in the contin-
ued over-harvesting of African bushmeat (Scholes &
Biggs 2005). By contrast, support for agroforestry sys-
tems have potentially ensured sustainable harvests
from indigenous tree species in areas otherwise prone
to deforestation (Sileshi et al. 2007). Management of
common forests has recently become successful with
the emergence of joint forest management and com-
munity-managed forest groups (Ostrom et al. 2002;
Pretty 2003;Berkes 2004;Molnar et al. 2007). World-
wide, some 370 million ha of various habitats are
estimated to be under community conservation,
including 14 million ha managed by 65 000 commu-
nity groups in India and 900 000 ha managed by
12 000 groups in Nepal. In Italy, Vitalini et al.
(2009) linked the continued use of wild food and
plants with a site’s EU designation of ‘Site of Commu-
nity Interest’. The preservation of habitats bodes well
for species conservation, but there are also concerns
that protected area status might exclude local people
from access and use.
In environments where LEK is being lost, it is
important that it be recorded. Local communities
might themselves desire to preserve wild food species
through, for example, the establishment of community
enterprises based on wild food resources in Nepal
(Shrestha & Dhillon 2006) or through local women
strengthening traditional community sanctions against
overuse and enlisting the support of state law in
northeast Thailand (Price 1997).
7. CONCLUSIONS
Wild food species form a significant portion of the
total food basket for households from agricultural,
hunter, gatherer and forager systems. However, the
focus on the contribution of agriculture to total food
security has resulted in the routine undervaluation of
wild food species. The continued contribution of
wild species to food and nutritional security is threa-
tened by some of the processes that seek to increase
agricultural production and enhance economic devel-
opment. While wild foods cannot entirely bridge the
existing supply and demand gaps, without them it
would be much wider.
Edible species provide more than just food and
income. In communities with a tradition of wild food
use, it is part of a living link with the land, a keystone
of culture (Pretty 2007;Pilgrim & Pretty 2010). The
decline of traditional ways of life and decreased wild
food use are interlinked. Research needs are twofold:
(i) standardized, accessible and comparable studies
on the nutritional and toxicological properties of cur-
rently underused wild species on a broad scale; (ii)
the identification of priority areas for conservation of
wild food species and the recording of food-relevant
LEK. Polices on conservation, food-security and agri-
culture need to be integrated to recognize and preserve
the importance of wild foods.
Recent initiatives indicate that this may be taking
place. For example, traditional food revitalization pro-
jects aim to increase the consumption of wild foods,
and are being used to provide health and cultural
benefits to traditional communities otherwise subject
to the nutrition transition (Pilgrim et al. 2009). The
FAO recognizes that ‘nutrition and biodiversity con-
verge to a common path leading to food security and
sustainable development’ and that ‘wild species and
intraspecies biodiversity have key roles in global nutri-
tion security’ (FAO 2009). The evidence shows that
wild foods provide substantial health and economic
benefits to those who depend on them. It is now
clear that efforts to conserve biodiversity and preserve
traditional food systems and farming practices need to
be combined and enhanced.
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