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Guidelines on assessing biodiverse foods in dietary surveys

Biodiversity is critical to the availability of nutrients in a diversified diet that supports health and well-being, as well as to the sustainability of the natural resource base upon which food systems rely. In order to mainstream biodiversity for improved food and nutrition security at national and local levels, a thorough understanding of the contribution of food biodiversity to healthy diets and sustainable food systems is required. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Bioversity International have jointly published these scientific guidelines on collecting information on food biodiversity through dietary assessment surveys, to assist researchers and practitioners in collecting more reliable data and to implement best practices in this regard. It is a step-by-step guide which describes the tasks to be undertaken in assessing the availability of food biodiversity and identifying biodiverse foods with sufficient taxonomic detail for incorporation into dietary intake surveys, and provides an understanding on how to adapt dietary assessment tools to capture biodiverse foods at national, regional and community levels. A tool that can be used to improve the scientific evidence base for biodiversity and nutrition, these guidelines contribute to the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Mainstreaming Biodiversity into Policies, Programmes and National and Regional Plans of Action on Nutrition, endorsed by the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) during the Fifteenth Regular Session in January 2015 (CGRFA-15/15/report).

The publication is available here.

Author:
FAO / Bioversity International
Year:
2017

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