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

For decades, the global outlook for food and agriculture has brought heightened concerns  as climate patterns create a mix of droughts and floods across the world. Consequently, fears of diminishing crop yields and livestock shortages have dominated the headlines. Amid the ensuing food security crisis, scientists are wondering if communities can turn toward local plant diversity as insurance against subsequent food shocks.

A recent study published in People and Nature examines how pastoralist communities in a Ugandan subregion contend with food shortages by adopting previously unused wild edible plants. The study comes on the heels of 2024 research on wild edible plants by local NGOs in Karamoja, a semiarid region in northern Uganda. That earlier study found “that people had developed uses for plants they had not used before,” Emiel De Meyer, a postdoctoral researcher at the State Natural History Museum in Germany, explained by email.

Spurred by this discovery, De Meyer led a team of researchers across five agro-pastorialist communities in Karamoja, interviewing members of the local communities on their knowledge of edible wild plants. Through a mix of qualitative and statistical methods, the researchers also probed the reasons behind the adoption of particular plants and how this knowledge was transmitted.

In the five villages covered in the study, the authors recorded 27 plant species previously unused as food and now eaten as leafy vegetables. Of these, 20 were reported to be indigenous to Uganda. Although all these plants were mostly harvested during the wet season, at least three were said to be also available during the dry season. Strikingly, the study found that these plants had been adopted for food mostly through trial and error, during seasons of acute hunger — or akoro, as it is known in the Ngakarimojong language.

“It shows that the surrounding vegetation holds unexplored uses and constitutes a reservoir of resilience,” De Meyer said of the study’s findings. “Local plant knowledge is usually treated as inherited and fixed. Here was an example of such knowledge being generated in the present.”

Karamoja is hardly an isolated example of a worsening food crisis sweeping across the Sahel and projected to affect an estimated 53 million people according to the U.N. Nigeria, the region’s most populous country, stands out with projections showing nearly 35 million people already facing acute hunger. Out of the 123 countries with sufficient data for the 2025 Global Hunger Index, Nigeria ranked 115th, falling within the category of “serious hunger.”

Together with erratic climate patterns, a plague of violent conflicts has aggravated the food crunch. Frequent attacks by insurgent groups within some of Nigeria’s breadbaskets have driven many locals from their farmland. Against this consequent dynamic, edible wild plants “can serve as a shock absorber before people start strategizing on how to cope,” says Vincent Ebu, a lecturer in forestry and wildlife resources management at Nigeria’s University of Calabar.

Edible plants found naturally in the wild comprise various food categories from fleshy fruits like berries to roots and leafy vegetables. These plants contain relatively high concentrations of phytochemicals, including polyphenols and carotenoids, which serve as defense against a slew of diseases and promote human well-being. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 1 billion people worldwide depend on wild edible species for food security and livelihood.

Some of these plants offer therapeutic benefits, too. In a review article published in the Exploration of Foods and Foodomics in early June, a group of  researchers examined the rising significance of edible wild plants in traditional and modern medicine across Nigeria. The authors consider an array of popular wild plants, including the baobab tree (Adansonia digitata), cherished for its rich composition of vitamins and dietary fiber. In parts of northern Nigeria, the baobab fruit pulp is typically used as a staple for baby food, while its leaves are key ingredients in cures for diarrhea and fever.

‘Food for the poor’

For all the biochemical richness inherent in edible wild plants, “most people continue to regard them as food for the poor,” said Mohammed Haruna, a lecturer at Nigeria’s Federal University, Dutsin-Ma, who wasn’t part of the People and Nature study.

De Meyer, however, reckons that this misconception may stem from the less broader adoption of these plants. “Their economic value is far harder to make visible, and they consequently attract little attention,” De Meyer said.

The general lack of public interest in these species means that far too many go unexplored, expert sources told Mongabay. “When I went for data collection at the [Cross River] National Park, I ate over seven fruits from the wild that I had not eaten in my life before,” recalled Babatunde Daniel, a forest biometrician based in Calabar, a coastal city in southeastern Nigeria. “Some of these fruits could be good supplements for sugar deficiency, but we don’t know about them because we don’t live in the village.”

Low awareness is not the only challenge, though. Edible wild plants, as with natural vegetation, are gravely imperilled by deforestation caused by rapid population growth and urbanization, Daniel added.

Although the body of research on edible wild plants has notably expanded in recent years, there’s still no comprehensive database of Nigeria’s diverse species and their nutritional values. One reason for this is that “traditional knowledge about them is disappearing following the demise of their custodians,” said Haruna, adding that this has hampered conservation.

In the Karamoja study, De Meyer and his colleagues noted women’s central role in the adoption of wild plants for food, as “knowledge of these plants is predominantly held by women,” they wrote. Three of the plant species they recorded bore vernacular names referencing the women who discovered their edible uses. An example is Toto anakong (Galisoga pariflora L.), reported to have been first discovered and eaten by a woman named Nakong.

Dealing with less botanical diversity

With new research showing how wild edible plants can contribute to food security, experts reckon that one important question is whether communities with lower botanical diversity are less capable of coping with food crises. De Meyer agreed. “Biodiversity encompasses wild species as well as the wild relatives of agronomically important crops, whether of local or wider importance. So when biodiversity is lost, these species and the genetic reservoirs they represent are lost with them.”

Wild plants have been pivotal to human history, benefiting both early and modern societies. Since most foods that are conventionally cultivated today stem from the wild, Ebu noted, wild plants are a helpful alternative amid lean harvests and climate crises. Just how much wild plants can reliably contribute to national food systems is a subject that future research will take on, though.

Banner image: Children belonging to the Karamojong ethnic group in Karamoja, Uganda, help with household chores. Researchers have studied the pastoralists’ use of edible wild plants during food shortages. Image by Marc Hofer/UNESCO via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO).

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Citations:

De Meyer, E., Emaruk, E., Omeri, S., Leese, A., Lorika, C. N., Achilla, T., … Bussmann, R. W. (2026). Botanical diversity as a reservoir of resilience: The emergence of new uses of wild plants under acute food shortages in Karamoja, Uganda. People and Nature, 8(9), 3066-3079. doi:10.1002/pan3.70387

Okpomor, O. E., Nwankwo, C. S., Mbachiantim, J. T., Balogun, A. A., Okoyeuzu, C. F., Eze, J. I., … Agbaji, M. U. (2026). Ethnobotany and biofunctional properties of selected edible wild plants in Nigeria: A comprehensive review. Exploration of Foods and Foodomics, 4. doi:10.37349/eff.2026.1010161

Cite this article

Kingsley Charles (2026). Uganda pastoralists turn to wild plants as food shortages bite, study finds. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-331118