Wild, Weedy and Domesticated Plants for Food Security and Sovereignty

Abstract

Archaeological studies have revealed that humans have inhabited the territory that today is Mexico for more than 20,000 years, while ethnobotanical research has identified that these peoples have made use of nearly 8,000 plant species, according to current information. More than 2,000 species are edible plants, that were and are included in their diet together with animals, mushrooms and a diverse microbiota responsible of fermentation of plant and animal substrates. Most edible species were and are obtained through gathering, hundreds of species have been managed in forests and anthropogenic areas to ensure their availability and a small fraction (nearly 250 species) became fully domesticated crops, managed in production systems that started practicing more than 10,000 years ago. Gathering and food production have coexisted for thousands of years, and crops have progressively displaced wild and weedy plants as main components of diet, but these plants are still important components of traditional food, especially in rural areas. This chapter gathers information from different regions and human cultures of Mexico that our research group has studied. It is directed to evaluate how important are wild and weedy products in human diet at present, how they are used and managed, and what role they play in food sovereignty in rural contexts. Information from 19 communities and regional markets among the Mixtec, Nahua, Mazahua, Rarámuri, Cuicatec, Ixcatec, Popoloca, and mestizo people was analyzed in La Montaña of Guerrero, the Sierra Tarahumara, the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, and the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve. In each community we carried out inventories of plants and other organisms used as food. The amounts of wild and weedy organisms consumed throughout the year were evaluated and compared with the food provided by the principal components of diet obtained from local production systems and/or interchanged in markets. We found that the proportion of wild and weedy plants that forms part of the annual diet may vary from 6.4% in mestizo communities of the Tehuacan Valley to nearly 21.9% in the Rarámuri community of Cuiteco in the Sierra Tarahumara, northern Mexico. The weight of wild and weedy plants in diet is not necessarily related to the diversity of products that are available; for example, the diversity of edible plants is higher in the Tehuacan Valley than in the Sierra Tarahumara. It is seemingly more related to human culture since, in general, the indigenous communities and households studied consume higher amounts of wild and weedy food than the mestizo communities and households. In some cases, it is also related to the level of deficit in the production of staple products through agriculture, which was recorded in all households sampled. Wild and weedy food importantly complement the edible biomass that the production systems are unable to cover; in addition, in all cases studied the highest consumption of wild and weedy products occurred during the period of greater scarcity of products from agriculture. The complementarity of products obtained through gathering is therefore clear in all cases analyzed. But, as mentioned, the cultural aspects were also relevant. Consuming wild and weedy products is associated to the indigenous people diet. In some cases, it is a motive of proud and is an element of cultural identity, in some others it is motive of discrimination. It is imperative to recognize that wild and weedy products complement the diet in biomass and nutriments, thus contributing to food security. But in addition, these edible products are part of a culinary culture and therefore important pieces of food sovereignty. In some areas, these products are being displaced by industrialized food of poor nutrimental quality but that, for some sectors of the population, have higher prestige. Therefore, promoting the cultural value of native food may be a way to combat the consumption of harmful industrialized food, maintaining culinary culture and enhancing food sovereignty.