Assessing the levels of food shortage using the traffic light metaphor by analyzing the gathering and consumption of wild food plants crop parts and crop residues in Konso Ethiopia

摘要

BackgroundHumanitarian relief agencies use scales to assess levels of critical food shortage to efficiently target and allocate food to the neediest. These scales are often labor-intensive. A lesser used approach is assessing gathering and consumption of wild food plants. This gathering per se is not a reliable signal of emerging food stress. However, the gathering and consumption of some specific plant species could be considered markers of food shortage, as it indicates that people are compelled to eat very poor or even health-threatening food.