2026/05/21 by G Muir, S Sorrenti, Giles Hanley-Cook +6 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
paper · doi:10.4060/cd8785en
openalex publication_date 2026/05/21 · openalex created_date 2026/05/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Food biodiversity is an essential element of diet quality and sustainable diets. Yet food production is dominated by a handful of crops, despite the thousands of edible species available in nature. Many of these foods fall under the category of wild or neglected and underutilized species (NUS). These species are largely overlooked in policy frameworks and interventions related to healthy diets and sustainable agrifood systems. Inadequate dietary assessment methods, limited food composition data, and inconsistent terminology and food classification contribute to significant underreporting — known as the “hidden harvest.” As a result, their contributions to nutrition, livelihoods, and sustainability are underestimated, leading to missed opportunities for agrifood systems transformation. Current dietary assessment tools and indicators are not well adapted to capture the consumption of biodiverse foods, particularly those that are seasonal or episodically consumed. Moreover, these methods are rarely implemented at scale due to complexity and cost. To address these gaps, this guidance outlines seven practical, minimal, steps to improve data collection on wild foods and NUS at scale. It also includes ten appendices with suggested templates to improve data collection, as well as examples from countries that have made adaptations to existing surveys. Finally, three case studies are featured from the Philippines, Thailand and from a global, interregional FAO project, all of which address different aspects of improving data on wild foods and NUS.