Vegetable interventions in crisis settings: a scoping review of practices

Humanitarian interventions increasingly include a vegetable component to help people affected by crisis create a livelihood and improve their diet. This scoping literature review uses PRISMA guidelines for scoping reviews to evaluate peer-reviewed and gray literature from scientific databases and websites of humanitarian organizations produced between 1992 and 2023 that document vegetable interventions in crisis settings. The study analyses how vegetable interventions in low and middle-income countries are designed and implemented, and the strength of evaluation methods employed. Out of the 53 studies included, only eight are in peer-reviewed journals. Thirty-four studies apply a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, and only one employs a randomized controlled trial design. The overall quality of studies is medium as assessed using the mixed methods appraisal tool. Vegetable interventions typically provide free seed and training and are often part of wider agricultural or health interventions. While the provision of vegetable seed appears to be a critical aspect of all interventions, no study mentions where the seed is acquired from, whether these are hybrid or open-pollinated varieties, or how much and how often seed is provided. The provided vegetables mostly include global varieties like cabbage and carrot, rather than traditional ones like Ethiopian kale or amaranth, which are known to be more nutritious and hardier. We suggest that more rigorous evidence for vegetable interventions in emergency settings is done and a more standardized method of reporting interventions adopted.