Home food procurement impacts food security and diet quality during COVID-19

  1. Meredith T. Niles
  2. Kristen Brassard Wirkkala
  3. Emily H. Belarmino
  4. Farryl Bertmann

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Abstract

Background

Home food procurement (HFP) (i.e. gardening, fishing, foraging, hunting, backyard livestock and canning) have historically been important ways that people obtain food. Recently, some HFP activities have grown (e.g. gardening), while other activities (e.g. hunting) have become less common in the United States. Anecdotally, COVID-19 has sparked an increase in HFP evidenced by increased hunting licenses and shortages in seeds and canning supplies. HFP may have positive benefits for food security and diet quality, though research beyond gardening is especially limited in high-income countries.

Methods

We examine HFP activities since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and their relationship to food security and dietary quality using multivariable logit models and matching analysis with a statewide representative survey ( n  = 600) of residents of Vermont, United States.

Results

We find 29% of respondent households classified as food insecure since COVID-19, and higher prevalence of food insecurity among those experiencing a negative job change since COVID-19, households earning less than $50,000 annually, Hispanic and multi-race respondents. Nearly 35% of respondents engaged in HFP activities since the COVID-19 pandemic began; the majority of those gardened, and more than half pursued HFP activities more intensely than before the pandemic or for the first time. Food insecure households were more likely to pursue HFP more intensely, including more gardening, fishing, foraging, and hunting. Respondents who were food insecure, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, those with a negative job disruption, and larger households all had greater odds of increased intensity of HFP during the COVID-19 pandemic. HFP was significantly associated with eating greater amounts of fruits and vegetables; however, this effect was only significant for food secure households.

Conclusion

Overall, these results suggest that HFP activities have increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and may be an important safety net for food insecure households. However, HFP for food insecure households does not translate into the same higher fruit and vegetable intake as found among food secure HFP households, suggesting this population may be trying to maintain intake, or that they may have potential important resource or technical assistance needs. Long-term, HFP activities may have important food security and diet quality impacts, as well as conservation implications, which should be more thoroughly explored. Regardless, the increased interest and intensity of HFP demonstrates opportunities for educational and outreach efforts.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1186/s12889-021-10960-0
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.02.21251017: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are many opportunities to expand this work with future research and address potential limitations of the current study. One limitation of this study is a lack of understanding about the amount of food generated through HFP activities. Future research could more clearly explore how different quantities of HFP affect food security and diet quality outcomes by asking what percent of food intake is coming from HFP, or whether HFP activities, especially hunting, fishing and foraging, result in food procurement. Further, in some of our diet quality metrics, we combined red and processed meat, which may have different nutritional profiles, especially if wild meat is part of a diet. These should be more carefully separated in future studies. Secondly, this work demonstrates outcomes during a global pandemic, when many people’s daily lives were significantly changed. People potentially had new motivations for pursuing HFP activities that could be related to food security, but also may be unrelated (e.g. hobbies, time in nature, cultural trends). Long-term potential diet and food security costs and benefits from HFP will likely accrue over many years. Therefore, it is critical to assess whether the new and increased intensity of HFP is sustained in the future. Such sustained efforts would also potentially have important impacts on conservation through increased demand in hunting, fishing and foraging that should be adequately considered. As well, long-term increased engagement in...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.02.21251017v1 on medRxiv