Plant diversity for food sovereignty: Identifying conservation priorities for food system functionality in the Ethiopian highlands

Background/Question/Methods

Food sovereignty is broadly defined as the right and capacity of communities to determine their own food systems.  For subsistence farmers, the majority of foods as well as materials for food culture are derived from plants and animals available within their own landscapes.  In these contexts, plant diversity contributes to food sovereignty by providing a range of ecological possibilities for farmers to sustain their food systems.  Our study is located in the highlands of Ethiopia, a region renowned for its crop and native plant diversity as well as the self-reliance of its farmers.  As in other mountain communities, plant diversity is threatened by population expansion, agricultural intensification, and climate change impacts.  Our research relies on farmers’ ecological knowledge to assess the functional significance of plants, measure recent changes in plant distributions, and identify conservation priorities to promote food sovereignty.  We conducted ethnobotanical interviews with farmers in 28 villages in the Debark District of North Gonder, Ethiopia.  We used farmers’ own categories of use to evaluate the contributions of plants to food systems.  We measured changes in the spatial distribution of useful plants by vegetation sampling and analysis of satellite imagery.

Results/Conclusions

Farmers generated a list of 142 plants, including cultivated, occasionally-cultivated, and non-cultivated species.  At least 122 of these plants play some role in local food systems.  Many are not consumed as food, but are used in food production, distribution, storage, preparation, and consumption.  Farmers highly value plants with multiple or unique uses.  A comparison of food-system significance and spatial distribution of each plant indicates that farmers have successfully promoted most of the plants that make the greatest contributions to food systems.  However, we identified several species that are critical to food system function yet exhibit recent declines in their spatial extent, thereby becoming less availabile to farming communities.  These plants will become the focus of community-based conservation activities aimed at promoting food sovereignty.