Wild Edibles of Deserts

Food Security and Sustainability

Salman Majeed, Muhammad Zafar, Mushtaq Ahmad, Mohd Kafeel Ahmad Ansari, Andrea Pieroni, Shazia Sultana

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040388372
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Agricultural Public Policy
• Index: Economics

Global Wild Edibles of Deserts: Food Security and Sustainability provides coverage of topics in food and health in desert rangelands, using an interdisciplinary approach that considers health not only in a functional and human sense, but also in terms of external factors including aridity.

The plant diversity in desert ecosystems provide economic service benefits, such as sources of fodder, fuel wood, and traditional medicinal plants. This book documents wild edibles commonly grown in deserts that are hugely beneficial for the herbal industry for the socio-economic uplift of local communities. This book contains multiple field pictorial graphs of desert wild edible plants to help with their identification, and it gives detailed information on food security issues and sustainability measures in the world desert zones. It also focusses on the diversity of wild edibles in deserts across the globe, their nutraceutical importance, production-consumption trends, integration into food menus, and marketing and livelihood opportunities to the indigenous people.

A volume in the Exploring Medicinal Plants series, this book creates opportunity for policymakers to develop plans for the successful entry of wild edibles into herbal industries, and attracts farmers owning infertile lands to cultivate wild edibles in desert rangeland. The book is a valuable resource for researchers, conservationists, and policymakers seeking solutions at the intersection of food security and environmental sustainability.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Prologue
• Preface
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Brief Overview of Deserts of the World: Ecology, Climate, Flora, Population
• Chapter 3 Traditional Wild Edibles (WEs) of the Deserts: Reservoir of Ethnomedicine
• Chapter 4 Economic Botany of the Desert WEs: Source of Food and Nutrition
• Chapter 5 Desert WEs, Climate Change, and Ecological Transition
• Index