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Overview of Seasonal Food Availability Calendar Tool. The seasonal food availability calendar tool is designed to assess the availability of wild, cultivated, and purchased fresh foods in the community over the months of the year. Within focus group discussions, participants are asked to free list the different fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes and pulses, animal source foods, nuts and seeds, and cereals and grains that are available within the community (note: not all food groups are required, and the selection of groups should depend on research questions and needs). After listing the different foods available for each of the food groups, the participants are asked to identify where they source the food (wild, cultivated, built food environments) and score its availability each month of the year on a scale from unavailable to high availability. In addition, the tool includes a module related to sustainability and perceived changes to the availability of the foods over time. The seasonal calendar of food availability is based on the guide developed by Bioversity International (Lochetti et al., 2020) as well as the modified version in the USAID Advancing Nutrition Guidelines for Market-Based Food Environment Assessments (USAID, 2023). This tool provides a seasonal calendar of the foods that are available within the community.

Seasonal Calendar Food Availability Cover Page

Seasonal Calendar of Food Availability Tool

Seasonal Calendar of Food Availability Instructions

Seasonal Calendar of Food Availability Excel Workbook