The Cost of Gathering Among the Baka Forager-Horticulturalists From Southeastern Cameroon

Abstract

What present-day foragers do for their living and what they eat have long been privileged areas for exploring human behavior, global health, and human evolution. While many studies have focused on hunting and meat acquisition, less attention has been given to gathering and plant foods. Despite evidence of variation in both nutritional quality and energetic costs of gathering different plants, the overall effort spent on gathering in relation to other subsistence tasks is still under explored. In the current context of economic, climate, and social changes, many forager societies also rely on other subsistence strategies, including agriculture and wage labor. In this study, we aim to explore the place of gathering in the livelihood of a mixed economy society, the Baka forager-horticulturalists of southeastern Cameroon, by comparing the involvement and the costs of activities related to food acquisition. From a pool of 153 adult participants (97 women and 56 men), we collected 246 daily records using a GPS (Global Positioning System) tracker combined with heart rate monitor and time allocation recalls. We compared the duration, distance traveled, and the intensity of work, measured by calculating the metabolic equivalent of task (MET), of subsistence activities related to food acquisition. Results from this work show that gathering activities, performed by both women and men, are energetically costly, with higher MET values than hunting and fishing activities. Furthermore, the MET values vary depending on the targeted plant foods. We discuss these insights in the overall framework of subsistence patterns, merging them with the socio-cultural and environmental factors that might explain Baka livelihood and subsistence strategy.