Uganda pastoralists turn to wild plants as food shortages bite, study finds

A study in People and Nature found that pastoralist communities in Uganda's Karamoja region have adopted 27 previously unused wild plant species as food, mostly discovered through trial and error during severe hunger seasons known locally as akoro. Twenty of those species are native to Uganda, and researchers say women hold most of the knowledge behind their use.

The finding lands amid a broader Sahel food crisis the UN projects could affect 53 million people, with Nigeria alone facing nearly 35 million people in acute hunger. Researchers and local experts note these plants carry real nutritional and even medicinal value, yet remain dismissed as food for the poor and undocumented in any comprehensive database.

Experts warn the knowledge is fragile: it's disappearing as elder knowledge-holders die off, even as deforestation from urbanization and population growth threatens the plants themselves.

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