The roles and values of wild foods in agricultural systems

By Z. Bharucha, J. Pretty. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2010

642 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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 components 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 community 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 agricultural 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, conservation-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.

Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mechanics of Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a08f6ad9155e2ba9dda490a2e94fb538cddad4de

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Civil and Structural Engineering

J. Pretty

In Mechanical Engineering

In Mechanics of Materials

Citations in the corpus

Sustainable intensification in agricultural systems. (2014, background): “This implies focused attention on a wider range of nutritionally dense crops, including fruit, vegetables, legumes, animal products (Gómez et al., 2013) and non-cultivated species (Bharucha and Pretty, 2010).”
From famine foods to delicatessen: Interpreting trends in the use of wild edible plants through cultural ecosystem services (2015, background): “…were an important 66provisioning service in Europe until the 20th century (Kangas and 67Markkanen, 2001; Łukasz et al., 2013), in recent decades their gathering 68and consumption have decreased both in terms of quantity and diversi69ty (Bharucha and Pretty, 2010; MA, 2005; Tardío et al., 2005).”
The Consumption of a Finite Planet: Well-Being, Convergence, Divergence and the Nascent Green Economy (2013, background): “Both farming and hunter-gatherer peoples have consistently maintained and improved resources by intentional sowing of wild seeds and roots, irrigation of wild grasses, and burning to stimulate growth and attract game (Kent 1989; Kelly 1995; Bharucha and Pretty 2010).”
The insectivore’s dilemma, and how to take the West out of it (2015, background): “…miss the richness of the cultural practices surrounding the consumption of insects, noticeably the fact that most of the insects eaten in the world today are not farmed, but harvested in the wild, or else actively managed by the communities in which they are consumed (Bharucha & Pretty, 2010).”
Improving diets with wild and cultivated biodiversity from across the landscape (2015, methodology): “The dichotomization of wild vs. cultivated food species should be cautioned against; many (if not most) wild species actually fall along a continuum, from wild species under various degrees and types of human management and intervention through to domestication (Bharucha and Pretty 2010).”
What are the effects of nature conservation on human well-being? A systematic map of empirical evidence from developing countries (2016, background): “While benefits of conserving wild populations for food provision and the flow of ecological processes upon which agriculture depends are promoted as part of ecosystem-based approaches [5, 36], the map reveals health outcomes from conservation interventions, such as trends in nutrition and disease ri”
How Can We Teach Our Children if We Cannot Access the Forest? Generational Change in Mapuche Knowledge of Wild Edible Plants in Andean Temperate Ecosystems of Chile (2016, neutral): “People may envision plant foods as existing along a continuum, ranging from the entirely wild to most domesticated (Bharucha and Pretty 2010; Lévi-Strauss 1950; Mazhar et al. 2007; Wyndham 2009).”
Wild Edible Fruits: A Systematic Review of an Under-Researched Multifunctional NTFP (Non-Timber Forest Product) (2019, background): “About one billion people worldwide derive livelihoods and food from forests [2], and around 300 million of these people depend extensively on NTFPs [3].”
The future of the global food system (2010, background): “Bharucha & Pretty (2010) comprehensively review a large and scattered literature on wild food and find that a remarkably large number of species are used by different communities.”
The management of tree genetic resources and the livelihoods of rural communities in the tropics: non-timber forest products, smallholder agroforestry practices and tree commodity crops (2014, background): “Long lists of edible NTFPs (Bharucha and Pretty, 2010) have been complied and many tree foods (especially fruits) have indeed been subject to some domestication (see Sections 2.2 and 3).”