New study showing that trees on farms improve dietary quality in rural Malawi

We used panel data covering a 10-year period from the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) to examine the effects of trees on farms on people’s dietary quality in rural Malawi. We found that having on-farm trees leads to higher and more diverse fruit and vegetable consumption. 

Coefficient plots summarizing the regression outputs for models run between trees on farm (binary and species count) and fruit and vegetable consumption (grams per adult male equivalent [AME] per day and diversity of consumption) over the study period (2010–2020) (†<0.1; *<0.05; **<0.01; ***<0.001). Abbreviations: TOF, Trees on Farm; Veg, vegetable.

New study showing that tree plantations and forest regrowth are linked to poverty reduction in Africa


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We assess whether tropical tree plantation expansion and forest regrowth across 18 African countries are associated with local people’s living standards. By combining a recent map that distinguishes tree plantations from regrowth from 2000 to 2012 with multidimensional poverty measures from more than 200,000 households, we find a positive association between people’s living standards and areas where tree plantations have expanded or, to a lesser extent, forest regrowth has occurred.

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

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.

New study in Science: Joint environmental and social benefits from diversified agriculture

Together with Prof. Ingo Grass from the University of Hohenheim in Germany – and 57 co-authors, we examined the effects of agricultural diversification strategies on both environmental and social outcomes. We did so by harmonizing data from 24 studies across 11 countries. We found that farmers who implemented multiple diversification strategies in tandem had more win-win outcomes.

New study in PNAS Nexus

We examine the empirical relationship between having forests and trees in the surroundings and the probability of children consuming nutritious foods. We do so by combining detailed tree cover estimates based on PlanetScope imagery (3 m resolution) with Demographic Health Survey data from >15,000 households.

We find that even low levels of tree cover improve the likelihood of children aged 12–59 months consuming vitamin A–rich foods. Moreover, we observe that the effects of tree cover vary across poverty levels and ecoregions. The poor are more likely than the non-poor to consume vitamin A–rich foods at low levels of tree cover in the lowland forest-savanna ecoregions, whereas the difference between poor and non-poor is less pronounced in the Sahel-Sudan. These results highlight the importance of trees and forests in sustainable food system transformation, even in areas with sparse tree cover.

New study in Nature – Sustainable Agriculture

We show how forest regrowth in Nigeria has affected people’s dietary quality. We do so by combining a new map on forest regrowth with food consumption panel data from over 1100 households.

We use a a combination of regression and weighting analyses to generate quasi-experimental quantitative estimates of the impacts of forest regrowth on people’s food intake. We find that people living in areas where forest regrowth has occurred have a higher intake of fruits and vegetables and thus higher dietary diversity.

New study in Nature Food

We examined monthly variation in women’s wild food consumption in two districts in India. After identifying that women most frequently consumed foods from forests and common lands in June and July, we estimated the contribution of wild food consumption to dietary diversity (a measure of diet quality), in these months. We used matching — a rigorous, quasi-experimental method — and regression analysis to isolate the causal relationship between wild food consumption and dietary diversity. Women who consumed wild foods were matched to women who did not consume wild foods on key socioeconomic, dietary and forest-level covariates – to ensure that differences in dietary diversity could be attributed to wild food consumption.

We found that women who consumed wild foods had higher average dietary diversity. In June, those women consumed an extra 0.34 food groups and, in July, they consumed an extra 0.30 food groups compared to women who did not consume wild foods.