Food from the forest
To understand the importance of this theme, it is necessary to review the evolution of agriculture throughout time and to understand the present interdependence of human population on such food sources. The variety and nature of the food from the forest is enormous and often poorly appreciated because it is often limited or interrelated with little understood cultural knowledge of those dwellers that collect the food. A crude analysis of such interrelation would allow for the following grouping: a) people who live within the forest and for whom it provides staple food. The interrelation of these also called "ecosystem people" is fundamental for survival and lends itself to management practices that must be carefully designed; b) people who live near the forest for whom it provides only supplementary food. An important consideration here is harvesting in time of famine. Cultivation and some degree of tending is found often leads to more sophisticated management practices. Occasionally marketing becomes an important consideration when surplus is harvested; c) trees cultivated in association with crops or grazing and the fruits are valued for food and d) forest species exploited in plantations some of which are already of great commercial importance and lend themselves to breeding for high yield varieties. A plea is made towards a comprehensive modification of such knowledge which has often remained vague for various reasons, one of them being that it does not fall under a traditional discipline or profession. However, when designing better land use systms to tap this knowledge, due allowance must always be made to understand the plight of those people who are so in close interdependent on these food sources.
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | biblioteca |
| Published: |
Turrialba (Costa Rica)
1978
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| Subjects: | ALIMENTACION HUMANA, SISTEMAS AGRICOLAS, |
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