New Study in Nature Food: Food-sourcing from on-farm trees mediates positive relationships between tree cover and dietary quality in Malawi


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By Emilie Vansant

I am so excited to share at last some of the results from my PhD research on land use and nutrition, published today in Nature Food – Open Access! Here, we show how sourcing food from on-farm trees can benefit people’s diets in rural Malawi.

In countries like Malawi, where most rural households rely on rain-fed agriculture, people’s diets can depend on what crops they grow. Yet, policies designed to improve food security often focus on increasing the productivity of calorie-rich staple grains, which have done little to address the country’s high rates of malnutrition (as far more people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies than hunger).

Trees are an important source of nutrient-dense foods, yet if and how they can support dietary quality remains poorly understood. Through linking tree cover estimates from high-resolution satellite imagery with detailed food consumption data in Malawi, our research evidences how sourcing food directly from trees on farms can support women’s micronutrient adequacy across dry and wet seasons.

For example: Compared to women without food trees, women who sourced food from their own trees had on average 8-15% higher levels of zinc, vitamin A, iron and folate adequacy in the dry season, and 6-12% higher levels of zinc, vitamin A and folate adequacy in the wet season.

To tackle the interconnected problems of climate change, food insecurity, and biodiversity loss, we need solutions that address environmental and human health in tandem. It is clear that trees can and must play a role in such solutions.

Systematic Literature Review: Tree-based farming systems can be a win-win for people and nature

Fruit and timber trees scattered within maize fields in Mulanje District, Malawi (photo credit: Emilie Vansant)

A new paper was published in People & Nature by Emilie Vansant in collaboration with a team of scientists at CIFOR-ICRAF. The study reviews literature linking tree-based farming systems and dietary quality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The synthesis of 36 studies finds:

  1. Maintaining trees in and around farmland – and using these trees for both the direct provision of foods and as a source of income – can serve as a key strategy for households to diversify food consumption and improve dietary quality.
  2. How much a tree-based farming system can influence diets is dependent on policies and institutions at the national scale, bioclimatic and geographical factors at the landscape scale, as well as socioeconomic factors at both the landscape and household levels.
  3. Indigenous populations practicing traditional forms of tree-based farming (which are often diverse systems integrated with wild landscapes) seem to maintain high levels of dietary quality through sourcing food from both wild and cultivated areas

The existing evidence, though limited, points at important knowledge gaps – namely the lack of a typology of tree-based farming systems to facilitate objective comparisons across cultural and geographical contexts. Additionally, there is a paucity of research that explicitly examines the role of non-forest trees in influencing dietary quality. By recognizing the potential of trees to contribute to positive nutritional outcomes in rural communities, this study supports the development of nutritionally-sensitive landscapes in LMICs.

Promotion of the article in CIFOR’s Forest News blog:

Read the full article here.

Partnership with ICRAF-CIFOR and the Nutri-Scapes Platform

Emilie Vansant, a PhD Fellow on the FORESTDIET project, was recently awarded a small grant to contribute to the recently-established Nutri-Scapes Transformative Partnership platform, a joint initiative by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and World Agroforestry (ICRAF). The platform aims to foster the development of nutrition-centered landscapes that can simultaneously support food security, livelihoods and conserve biodiversity.

In line with Nutri-Scapes’ objectives, Emilie is examining existing empirical research on the linkages between different classifications of tree-based agricultural systems and dietary quality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Her planned synthesis will add to existing knowledge on forest-diet linkages and agrobiodiversity-diet linkages by focusing on agricultural systems that utilize single trees, tree crops, and/or forest cover. Classifying farming systems by tree-cover amount, configuration, and level of integration could lend valuable insight into how tree-based farming can provide direct and indirect benefits to the diets of small-holder farmers. Using the relationships between forests and diets as a point of departure, her narrow scope will permit a thorough examination of these complex mechanistic pathways in an agricultural context and allow for comparison across a gradient from single trees towards dense, forest-based farming systems.

Farming with trees in Sarawak, Malaysia (personal photo, 2018)