Foraging for Development: A Comparison of Food Insecurity, Production, and Risk among Farmers, Forest Foragers, and Marine Foragers in Southwestern Madagascar
Tucker, B.; Tsimitamby; Humber, F.; Benbow, S.; Iida, T.
Human Organization 69(4): 375-386
2010
ISSN/ISBN: 0018-7259 DOI: 10.17730/humo.69.4.m1n76k5272632873Document Number: 325181
International programs for combating food insecurity including the recent FAO "How to feed the world in 2050: High-level Expert Forum" promote agricultural intensification among the main solutions to global hunger. We argue here that hunting and gathering on land and at sea will often result in less food insecurity than farming. In southwestern Madgascar, questionnaire data find framers more food insecure than neighboring forest foragers and marine foragers. Production data show that framers produce a greater quantity of food energy, but foragers sell their goods for higher prices resulting in comparable market-valued income among all three subsistence modes. A stochastic model finds framing portfolios an order of magnitude more risky (lower z-scores) than foraging portfolios, except when foraging portfolios have low means. This is because framers experience only three to five harvests per year while forgers may experience 365 harvests. As farmers await future harvests of uncertain quantity, they are more likely than foragers to depend on formal and informal credit. The stochastic model shows that diversification, mixing foraging with framing, can only reduce the risks of farming under limited conditions. We conclude that pressuring foragers to become framers will increase rather than diminish regional food insecurity.