Importance of non-conventional food plants (PANC) for food security in Pium community (Manoá-Pium Indigenous Land, Roraima, Brazil)

Abstract

The non-conventional food plants (PANC) have one or more category of use for feeding and are not present in most people’s daily life. Such plants have importance in a global level, once basic alimentation in the world is increasingly homogenous, monotonous, and globalized. Although they are “non-conventional” for most people, many PANC are familiar and important for traditional peoples, especially for food security. In case of indigenous communities, the relation with the land is part of food security. However, food consumption and production patterns prevailing today in some indigenous communities is not good because it’s artificial. The objective of this work was to contribute for food security by appreciation of traditional food and PANC in Pium community, located in Serra da Lua region, state of Roraima, Brazil. We made a description of the perception of some community’s dwellers about alimentation today and in the past, as well as a survey of PANC cultivated by those dwellers. We also developed an experience of organic diversified planting, in partnership with community’s school. Description of PANC and their use was also made in Wapichana language, which is officialized in municipality of Bonfim, where this community is located. It’s important to continue an analysis about healthy alimentation, to encourage indigenous people to plant more PANC and also continue to plant traditional plants on fields and homegardens, aiming food security and conservation of culture.