Survey on the wild edible fruits in the selected barangays of Burgos, Ilocos Sur

Introduction

In the Philippines, many people gather a wide rangeof fruits from the wild because of their taste, culturalpurposes, availability of the fruits, dietarysupplements, or to tide over food shortages. Wildedible fruits (WEFs) are edible fruit species that arenot cultivated and are collected in their naturalhabitats. However, wild fruit consumption hasgradually reduced due to the introduction ofintroduced fruits. Introduced fruits are fruits that arenot native to the region or country where they arebeing consumed. They are usually imported fromother countries and can be quite expensive due to thecost of transportation and import duties. Intensivecommercialization and promotion of high-value fruitcrops, including introduced species, has reducedconsumer awareness of wild species, including WEFs(Suwardi et al., 2023).

WEFs are better than cultivated fruits when it comesto nutrients (Yangdon et al., 2022). They are also freefrom chemical spray; hence these wild fruits are anticancer and very much recommended for publicconsumption (Tombali, 2016). According to the Foodand Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2011), wild foodresources comprise a variety of edibles, includingWEFs, vegetables, mushrooms, orchids, canes, andherbal plants; and WEFs contribute the most to thetotal number of wild edible resources. During times ofhunger or drought, poor communities in rural parts ofthe world, wild edible fruit species serve an importantrole in additional food provision and addressing foodgaps. In a more recent report by the Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)(2020), the existing global food system is thought toprovide adequate calories for the entire world. However,about two billion people still experience hunger or lackaccess to nutritious meals. Wild food plants aretraditional foods that tend to be richer in micronutrientsthan cultivated crops (Hunter et al., 2019).

Ethnobotanical documentation can increaseenvironmental awareness of our rich naturalresources (Tombali, 2016). The investigation on thewild edible fruits (WEFs) in a region is also a way tohelp in addressing worldwide concern on foodsecurity and malnutrition through the promotion ofnutritious local foods to meet dietary needs (ChuaBarcelo, 2014). In the Philippines, publishedethnobotanical documentation of our WEFs is stillvery few. In the town of Burgos in Ilocos Sur, thereare no recent or available accounts about the wildedible fruits (WEFs) aside from being an ideal site forsuch study due to its relatively undisturbedenvironment. The list generated from ethnobotanicaldocumentation can be utilized as a food andbiodiversity guide to help strengthen the familiarity ofthe local population with the available WEFs in theirarea. It gives an opportunity for tourists and nonnative visitors to be acquainted to the available nativefruits they may find in the area. Furthermore, thesurvey can help strengthen the preservation of plantbased knowledge of the community which are criticalin future researches and development of effective ofmanagement policies for biodiversity andconservation concerns. Survey on available naturalresources may introduce an array of rarely utilizedresources and potential use which eventually leads togreater conservation importance of the species. This isfor the fact that the conservation and importance statusis not merely anchored in the rarity or abundance ofspecies but also in terms of their uses (Torres &Malaya, 2021; Torres, 2017). Thus, the presentinvestigation aims to create the first list of some wildedible fruits (WEFs) that can be found in the town ofBurgos province of Ilocos Sur, Philippines, describetheir uses, and cultural significance. 

The general aim of this study was to conduct a surveyof edible wild fruits found in the selected barangays ofBurgos, Ilocos Sur. Specifically, the study aimed to listthe edible wild fruits in the selected barangays ofBurgos, Ilocos Sur, determine the culturalsignificance index of species and families of theidentified edible fruits and their utilization, andcreate a compendium of edible fruits found in theselected barangays of Burgos, Ilocos Sur.