BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA SHEET

economic uses. Such an approach is short sighted; with perhaps initial food
gains but at an unacceptable price. Without the knowledge on which to base
decisions such agricultvzal planning would exist only in a vacuum.
Within the tropical regions of sub-iriharan Africa the theme of "hungry
months", or period of food insufficiency that occurs when dietary resources
from stored field crops are exhausted and the anticipated harvest from growing
crops has not been achieved, is another compelling argument for developmental
research on edible wild plants. This dietary problem has been documented by
Dubourg (1957) for the Mossi of Upper Volta, by Hunter (1967) for several
societies in Ghana, by Brooke (1967) for Tanzania. In West Africa Annegers
(1973) and Ogubu (1973) clearly show the important role played by indigenous
wild food resources in the months just before harvest of domesticated field
crops. Their work reveals the need for careful planning when considering
expanding agricultural farm size at the expense of vital, nutritionally im­
portant wild plants that supplement human diet at critical periods of the
agricultural cycle (see also Miracle, 1961; Seasonal Hunger, 1968).
85.