Eleven years of the war in Syria have caused substantial socioeconomic and cultural changes, and have led to widespread food insecurity across the country. Our recently published study in the journal Economic Botany (IF: 2.6, Q2 in Plant Sciences) seeks to scrutinize the impact of socioeconomic factors on the use of wild food plants during the conflict. The study revealed that the number of used species had a significant statistical relationship with informant age and annual household income, while informant gender was a predictor for both reliance on wild plants and frequency of use.
The results of our study are crucially important to understand the impact of socioeconomic conditions on human behavior towards food in crisis conditions. The findings can be particularly useful for food security projects implemented by national and international organizations working in Syria, and probably in other similar war zones.
The study has been conducted by Naji Sulaiman (TRIBE alumni) and Zbynek Polesny (TRIBE team leader), in collaboration with Vladimir Verner (TRACE team leader).
