Foraging, perennial vegetables, and nutritional resilience in a farmworker community: a mixed-methods analysis comparing nutrition functional diversity and the healthy eating index

Farmworker communities face significant food access barriers including economic constraints, immigration enforcement threats, and geographic isolation from retail food sources. Foraging practices and perennial vegetable use have been proposed as nutrition resilience strategies in these communities, yet their contributions to dietary quality remain poorly understood. The objective of this study was to compare home garden agrobiodiversity, food access patterns, and dietary quality among farmworker households in Immokalee, Florida, considering foraging and perennial vegetable use as resilience strategies.

A cross-sectional mixed-methods design was employed, including participatory ranking activities (n = 16) and in-depth interviews incorporating dietary recalls and garden mapping (n = 58). Data collection was conducted in Spanish and Haitian Kreyòl; Spanish speakers who also spoke an indigenous language were differentiated as a distinct subgroup. Nutrition Functional Diversity (NFD) scores were used to quantify the nutritional contributions of diverse food sources, and Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2015) scores were used to assess overall diet quality. As a cross-sectional study, findings are not temporal and cannot describe causal relationships.

Participants demonstrated diverse food procurement strategies including gardening (67%), foraging (36%), and food pantry use. Mean HEI score was 61.7 ± 12.3, comparable to US population averages. NFD scores revealed that difficult-to-access plants contributed 31.3% of potential nutritional diversity, while pantry-sourced plants contributed 30.1%. Foraged foods contributed notably to micronutrient intake, providing vitamin A (180-200% RDA), calcium (40-60% RDA), and vitamin K. Language group significantly affected HEI scores (F = 3.86, p = 0.03), with Spanish speakers scoring higher than Haitian Kreyòl speakers. No meaningful correlation was observed between NFD and HEI scores (R ² = 0.006).

The absence of correlation between NFD and HEI scores suggests these metrics capture distinct dimensions of food security and should not be treated as interchangeable. Farmworker communities employ sophisticated nutrition resilience strategies that may not be adequately captured by conventional dietary quality measures, highlighting limitations in applying standardized dietary guidelines across culturally diverse populations. Foraging and perennial vegetable use represent important yet potentially stigmatized food access strategies. Nutrition interventions should recognize and support existing community food knowledge rather than imposing top-down recommendations. Future research should address compositional data gaps for culturally important foods and prioritize development of culturally responsive nutrition assessment tools.