A new survey of New England residents finds gardening, hunting, fishing and other HWFP activities are important tools for maintaining food security through extreme events such as pandemics and climate change. It has been shown that
Researchers at the University of Vermont and the University of Maine found that both food insecurity and home and wild food production (HWFP) (horticulture, hunting, fishing, foraging, and “backyard” poultry and livestock raising) are linked to the spread of the novel coronavirus. found a significant increase during the infectious disease pandemic. Those who participated in HWFP activities showed improved food security after 9 to 12 months.
Paper published in scientific reportsurveyed more than 1,000 individuals in rural Vermont and Maine (two of the most rural states in the country) to identify food security and food sources.
The researchers hope that policymakers will consider how HWFP can make food systems more resilient. “Homegrown and wild food production is not a silver bullet, but it is a potential solution that has been largely overlooked,” said Meredith Niles, an associate professor at the University of Vermont who led the study.
Programs that support HFWPs are often ignored by policymakers, but research suggests that these activities have the potential to enhance food security, especially in increasingly frequent crisis situations. There is.
“Even in normal times, there are many barriers to accessing food, especially for people living in poverty. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we faced travel restrictions, stay-at-home orders, and supply chain disruptions. There were additional barriers, such as confusion,” Rachel said. Mr. Schattman, assistant professor of sustainable agriculture at the University of Maine. “There have been various food aid programs, but no one has seriously considered how subsistence activities such as hunting, gardening, canning, foraging, and raising backyard animals contribute to food security. There was no one there.”
While there was anecdotal evidence early in the pandemic that people were starting home gardens and running out of canning jars, Niles said this paper brings quantitative data to back up those stories. It has said. “We use critical data to demonstrate at scale that people who engaged in household and wild food production, particularly gardening, at the beginning of the pandemic were more likely to be food secure nine to 12 months later. “I was able to do that,” Niles said. “It's really interesting because we've never really seen data on this scale at multiple points in time to evaluate this issue.”
“We have thought that producing your own food through hunting, fishing, gathering, gardening, etc. could help people with food security. “This is the best evidence we have so far that it makes a difference,” said postdoctoral researcher Sam Bliss. A Ph.D. from the University of Vermont who was involved in the research.
One key takeaway from this report is that people who became newly food insecure during the pandemic were better able to recover from food insecurity through household or wild food production than they were before the pandemic. It's about what you seem to be best at. “Our team is particularly focused on understanding why chronically food insecure people are unable to use home and wild food production to improve food security in the same way as other populations. I'm very interested,” Niles said. “We have some information about the barriers they face and are looking at other studies to assess ways to overcome these issues.”
“We need policies and programs that make growing their own food more accessible to those who can benefit the most,” Bliss said.
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Reference magazines:
Niles, Montana; other. (2024). In his two rural U.S. states, sourcing homegrown and wild foods was implicated in improving food security during the COVID-19 pandemic. scientific report. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-52320-z.
