Wild-collected foods contribute to Adivasi women’s nutrition during the lean season: Study
Babushahi Bureau
New Delhi, June 26, 2023:In what could lend impetus to India’s efforts to curb malnutrition, especially among Adivasi women, a new research study has revealed that wild foods contribute to women’s higher dietary diversity in India and constitute a substantial contribution to food and nutrition security.
The study – “Wild foods contribute to women’s higher dietary diversity in India” – is the cover story for the June issue of the journal Nature Food. It demonstrates the role of food items collected from forests and common lands in women's diets in rural India. Report attached.
As a part of the study, researchers collected monthly data on diet recall from 570 households across two Adivasi-dominated and forested districts in Jharkhand and West Bengal and found that wild food consumption significantly contributes to women's diets, particularly during June and July. Results of the study revealed that women who consumed wild foods had higher average dietary diversity scores (13% and 9% higher in June and July, respectively) and were more likely to consume nutrient-dense, dark green leafy vegetables than those who did not collect wild foods.
The study is the result of a collaboration between researchers representing the Indian School of Business (ISB); South Dakota State University, USA; Humboldt University, Germany; University of Michigan, USA; Manchester University, UK; and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The results put a spotlight on the need to have public policies that promote knowledge of wild foods and protect people's rights to access forests and common lands as an instrument to improve nutrition.
The research reports that 40% of the women in the study group never met the minimum dietary diversity over one year, thus highlighting the dire need to address poor diets.
The research findings further suggest that the consumption of wild foods is important to vulnerable women in Adivasi areas, particularly during June and July when other crops are still in the growing stages in fields.
The research further emphasizes the importance of protecting the access of local communities to forests and other natural resources for improved food security and nutrition. It also provides an additional reason for the protection of forests and associated indigenous knowledge.
This latest research assumes greater significance by adding the element of wild-collected foods to the debate on nutrition.
While scholars recognize that the poorest households in Adivasi and forested areas depend heavily on wild-collected food items, policy debates, and interventions have largely and exclusively focused on farm-produced food. By providing quantitative evidence on the critical contribution of wild-collected food, the study points policymakers to an easy way to improve nutrition amongst the rural poor.
Professor Ashwini Chhatre, Co-author of the study, & Executive Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business (ISB): “Wild foods are known as delicacies that only rich people can afford, truffles and morels being cases in point. But we know very little about how much poor people depend on them, and how critical these wild foods are to the nutrition security of forest-dwelling communities. Our study has revealed the tip of a massive opportunity iceberg. These wild foods and knowledge associated with their distribution, seasonality, and abundance need to be included in the analysis of food systems and interventions to improve nutrition. When climate shocks destroy rainfed crops in forested regions, it is wild foods that stabilize food consumption for the poorest households”.