BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA SHEET

potential for such species within the context of agricultural development as
part of existing USAID themes of improving agriculture and nutrition in Third
World nations.
Basic study questions associated with these objectives may be identified.
In regions or societies where wild plants are used as human food, are the plants
central or peripheral to maintaining dietary quality? Is their use seasonally
important, or is utilization common throughout the agricultural year? Do wild
species complement or duplicate energy and nutrients obtained from domesticated
field crops? What role do wild plants have in maintaining nutritional quality
of diet during drought and periods of associated social unrest? Should research
on dietary wild plants be sponsored directly by USAID within the context of
agricultural development, or be assigned a low USAID priority?
METHODS
This contract, awarded September 1980, was designed for library research
only; no field surveys or correspondence with appropriate governmental agencies
were initiated due to time and financial constraints. Four assistants trained
in library research-retrieval methods were employed to assist the principal
investigator. One computer literature-retrieval search was coordinated using
DIALOG/AIRS systems available through the Peter J. Shields library, University
of California, Davis. This system, drawing from a publication data base exceed­
ing 12 million articles is a cross-tabulation process whereby key words associat­
ed with wild plant use in diet were matched with respective countries of Sub-
Saharan Africa (Appendix 1). The literature search using the DIALOG/AIRS system
was disappointing, yielding less than twenty suitable references. Accordingly,
a standard literature search on dietary wild plants was initiated using a method­
ology outlined in Table 1. Basic anthropological, botanical, geographical,
2.