Dear CPF team. I am sorry I was not able to post before May 14th, but have been thinking about indicators for forests' contribute to food security and nutrition for a long time so I will post now.
Indicators forests' contribute to food security and nutrition can and should be incorporated into both FSN data tools and Forest monitoring tools. Below I will list both, with the ones I think are the easiest (requiring the least resources and adaptation of existing tools) listed first.
Potential Indicators from FSN data:
- Percent of fruits, vegetables and animal source foods in the diet from wild species or tree species. By frequency or weight. Would require better identification of less common foods in dietary survives (e.g. less common foods are often grouped into "other vegetable" categories).
- Percent of fruits, vegetables and animal source foods in the diet from forests, agroforests or uncultivated lands. By frequency or weight. Would require asking the source of foods in dietary survives.
- Percent of fruits, vegetables and animal source foods available in community/ region/ or market that come from forests, agroforests or uncultivated lands. By frequency or weight. Would require asking the source of foods in market survives. Given the push to improve nutrition and food system data available globally, with a focus on improving data collection for the monitoring of food prices for nutritionally important foods such as fruits and vegetables, this might be easily included as well.
Potential Indicators from Forestry data:
- Collection of non-wood-forest products, with a focus on those used as fruits, vegetables and animal source foods. By frequency or weight. Systematic collection of data on weight of wild fruits and vegetables could be incorporated into FAOSTATs on food production and food available for consumption, allowing for accurate tracing of the contribution of forest foods to diet quality.
- Number of percentage of population consuming forest foods (and ideally the amount of frequency of consumption).
- Number of percentage of population collecting forest foods (and ideally the amount of frequency of consumption).
Without better, systematic/ globally comparable data we will remain unable to accurately estimate the contribution of forest foods to diet quality, nutrition and food security.
I would be happy to contribute further if there are ways I can be helpful,
Thanks, Dr. Bronwen Powell, Pennsylvania State University
Д-р. Bronwen Powell