Contribution of Forests and Trees to Food and Nutrition Security

Context

With rising food prices and increasingly frequent droughts, floods and fires, as well as insufficient improvements in food production technologies and agricultural policies, food security is rapidly emerging as a key factor in Africa’s social and economic development. The interactions between forest and trees, on the one hand, and food security, on the other, may not be immediately clear to most people, with the obvious exception of when forest land is cleared for agriculture. Still, there are several such direct and indirect interactions, many of which already play significant roles in the food supply for rural people, and most of which hold a tremendous potential for improvements. First, there is the direct production of foods from forests and trees, e.g. fruits, nuts, other edible parts of some trees (leaves, roots), game animals, honey, etc. Fodder from trees and shrubs for domestic animals, as well as forest grazing, are crucial sources of feed in animal husbandry. Trees and shrubsare potent improvers of soil fertility (e.g. through N-fixation on farm, as fallows in shifting cultivation, and via organic inputs through litter fall and root decay), they can be arranged on farm-land to reduce erosion, and they can provide a more amenable microclimate for food crops and domestic animals (shade, wind brakes). Forests on a larger landscape scale will also positively influence water accessibility for farming as well as creating a better local climate.

Finally, wood and non-wood tree products can provide much needed additional cash incomes for farmers and rural communities. In recent decades, there has been a rapidly increasing interest in and research on such interactions, particularly where trees and shrubs are integrated into farms (agroforestry), but much remain to be done. The potential of food accessions from outside farms (in forests and on common land), is often hampered by unclear tenure and user rights.