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The importance of different forest management systems for people’s dietary quality in Tanzania

September 2024
Landscape Ecology 39(9)

DOI:10.1007/s10980-024-01961-6

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CC BY 4.0

Authors:

Rasmus Skov Olesen

University of Copenhagen

Bowy den Braber

The University of Sheffield

Charlotte Hall

University of Stirling

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Context A large body of literature has shown that forests provide nutritious foods in many low- and middle-income countries. Yet, there is limited evidence on the contributions from different types of forest and tree systems. Objectives Here, we focus on individual trees and smaller forest patches outside established forest reserves as well as different forest management systems. Methods We do so by combining novel high-resolution data on tree cover with 24-h dietary recall surveys from 465 women in Tanzania. Results We show that people with more unclassified tree cover (i.e., individual trees and small forest patches) in their nearby surroundings have more adequate protein, iron, zinc, and vitamin A intakes. We also find that having a nearby forest under Participatory Forest Management (PFM) system is associated with higher adequacy levels of energy, iron, zinc and vitamin A. By contrast, tree cover within other types of forest (e.g., Government Forest Reserves and Government Forest Plantations) is not positively associated with people’s dietary quality. Conclusions Our key finding is that having individual trees, smaller forest patches and/or forest under PFM in close proximity is more beneficial for people’s diets than other types of established forests. Our results highlight the nutritional importance of trees outside established forests and question the often-assumed benefits of forests if these are made inaccessible by social barriers (e.g., legislation). Finally, our results emphasize the need to distinguish between different forest management systems when studying forest-diet linkages.

Forest management systems, position coordinates, elevation and mean Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Living Standard dimension across the eight villages included in the study. The red dots represent the survey respondents’ homes and show variation in vitamin A adequacy levels within and across sites. The locations have been randomly displaced up to 300 m for confidentiality purposes

…

Post-matching results for how tree cover within five different types of tree and forest management systems is associated with people’s A macro- and micronutrient adequacy, and B intake of four key food groups. Results are not shown for the two food groups ‘grains, white roots and tubers, and plantains’ and ‘pulses’ as no significant results were found. P-values: * < 0.05, ** < 0.01, *** < 0.001. N = 465

…

Share of energy, protein and micronutrients coming from the different MDD-W food groups, broken down into respondents living in areas with above vs below median unclassified tree cover. We have merged ‘nuts and seeds’, ‘dairy’, ‘eggs’ and ‘other vegetables’ into ‘other’ because these food groups contributed less than 1% of total nutrient intake. The category ‘sugar sweetened beverages’ was added to the figure as it contributed 4.5% and 3.5% of energy intake for respondents living in areas with above and below median unclassified tree cover, respectively. N = 465

…

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Landsc Ecol (2024) 39:176

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-024-01961-6

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The importance ofdiﬀerent forest management systems

forpeople’s dietary quality inTanzania

R.S.Olesen · F.Reiner· B.denBraber·

C.Hall· C.J.Kilawe· J.Kinabo· J.Msuya·

L.V.Rasmussen

Received: 24 January 2024 / Accepted: 11 August 2024 / Published online: 11 September 2024

Abstract

Context A large body of literature has shown that

forests provide nutritious foods in many low- and

middle-income countries. Yet, there is limited evi-

dence on the contributions from diﬀerent types of for-

est and tree systems.

Objectives Here, we focus on individual trees

and smaller forest patches outside established for-

est reserves as well as diﬀerent forest management

systems.

Methods We do so by combining novel high-reso-

lution data on tree cover with 24-h dietary recall sur-

veys from 465 women in Tanzania.

Results We show that people with more unclassi-

ﬁed tree cover (i.e., individual trees and small forest

patches) in their nearby surroundings have more ade-

quate protein, iron, zinc, and vitamin A intakes. We

also ﬁnd that havinga nearby forest under Participa-

tory Forest Management (PFM) systemis associated

with higher adequacy levels of energy, iron, zinc and

vitamin A. By contrast, tree cover within other types

of forest (e.g., Government Forest Reserves and Gov-

ernment Forest Plantations) is not positively associ-

ated with people’s dietary quality.

Conclusions Our key ﬁnding is that having indi-

vidual trees, smaller forest patches and/or forest

underPFM in close proximity is more beneﬁcial for

people’s diets than other types of established for-

ests. Our results highlight the nutritional importance

of trees outside established forests and question the

often-assumed beneﬁts of forests if these are made

inaccessible by social barriers (e.g., legislation).

Finally, our results emphasize the need to distinguish

between diﬀerent forest management systems when

studying forest-diet linkages.

Keywords Food and nutrition security· Nutrient

adequacy· Dietary quality· Forest management·

Tree cover· Multi-functional landscape

Supplementary Information The online version

contains supplementary material available at https:// doi.

org/ 10. 1007/ s10980- 024- 01961-6.

R.S.Olesen(*)· F.Reiner· B.denBraber· C.Hall·

L.V.Rasmussen

Department ofGeosciences andNatural Resource

Management, University ofCopenhagen, Øster Voldgade

10, 1350Copenhagen, Denmark

e-mail: rso@ign.ku.dk

C.Hall

Biological andEnvironmental Sciences, University

ofStirling, StirlingFK94LA, UK

C.J.Kilawe

Department ofEcosystems andConservation, Sokoine

University ofAgriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania

J.Kinabo· J.Msuya

Department ofHuman Nutrition andConsumer Sciences,

Sokoine University ofAgriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania

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Introduction

Recent literature has established positive linkages

between forests and food and nutrition security in

low- and middle-income countries, both based on

large-scale datasets (Ickowitz et al. 2014; Galway

etal. 2018; Rasolofoson etal. 2018; DenBraber etal.

2024) as well as site-speciﬁc case studies (Baudron

etal. 2017; Cheek etal. 2022). There are four over-

arching pathways by which forests and trees can

positively aﬀect people’s food and nutrition security

(Baudron etal. 2019b; Gergel et al. 2020): (1) The

direct provision of food as forests often host numer-

ous and nutrient-rich wild plants and animals that are

consumed by local communities (Powell etal. 2013;

Asprilla-Perea and Díaz-Puente 2019), (2) the pro-

vision of ecosystem services (e.g., soil protection,

water provision, pollination, access to manure and

biomass), which can improve the productivity of sur-

rounding agricultural lands (Baudron et al. 2019a;

Yang 2020), (3) the provision of fuelwood, which is

vital for cooking and boiling water in many countries

(Karki etal. 2018), and (4) income generation from

sale of forest and tree products, which can facilitate

the purchase of nutritious foods from markets (Miller

etal. 2020).

Despite the well-established positive linkages

between forests and people’s diets, little is known

about (1) the potential contribution of trees outside

of established forest reserves beyond agroforestry

systems, which are well-studied (Babu and Rhoe

2002; Bostedt etal. 2016; Afentina etal. 2021), and

(2) diﬀerent types of forest management systems. We

note that trees outside of established forest reserves

diﬀer from agroforestry as they are not limited to

being located in or around farmland but include trees

growing across all types of non-forest landscapes

(e.g., urban settlements, roads, lakes). One poten-

tial reason behind the limited knowledge on the role

of trees outside forests is that large-scale landscape

studies tend to apply binary forest/non-forest classi-

ﬁcations based on either moderate spatial resolution

data (Johnson etal. 2013; Rasmussen etal. 2019) or

larger political forest units (Kumeh etal. 2021). Con-

sequently, most knowledge on tree-diet relationships

comes from local case studies that examine the eﬀects

of agroforestry systems on people’s diets (Ghosh-

Jerath et al. 2021; Jemal et al. 2021; Zahoor et al.

2021; Kulsum and Susandarini 2023). Such studies

tend to ﬁnd positive linkages between agroforestry

and dietary quality (Jamnadass etal. 2013; Montag-

nini 2017; Dagar etal. 2020). For example, a cross-

sectional study among 170 farmers in India estimated

that a 1% increase in tree density and tree diversity

on farms would increase people’s food consumption

score (mean level: 28) by 0.2% point and 0.1% point,

respectively (Singh etal. 2023). A recent review cov-

ering 36 publications on the linkages between tree-

based farming systems and food and nutrition secu-

rity in low- and middle-income countries found that

trees located around farmland had generally positive

eﬀects on people’s diets, directly through provision

of wild and cultivated foods, and indirectly through

improved income opportunities (Vansant et al.

2022). Another review assessing 207 case studies

from sub-Saharan Africa found that 68% of the stud-

ies indicated an increase in food availability due to

the presence of trees on farms (Kuyah etal. 2016).

Yet, a study among 399 farmers in six agroecologi-

cal zones in Rwanda found that trees on farms mainly

represented a safety net for the poorest households

rather than an important contributor to overall food

security (Ndoli etal. 2021). Also, there is mixed evi-

dence on the eﬀects of agroforestry on crop produc-

tion with some studies pointing to the positive eﬀects

on yields (Baier etal. 2023) and soil quality (Kuyah

etal. 2019), whereas other studies indicate that trees

on farms may also be associated with lower yields of

crops such as wheat (Khan etal. 2023).

Even though more than one quarter of Africa’s tree

cover is found outside areas previously classiﬁed as

forest (Reiner etal. 2023), the role of individual trees

outside forests (beyond agroforestry) has long been

overlooked due to a lack of high-resolution satellite

imagery (Schnell et al. 2015). However, in the past

few years progress has been made through the com-

bination of new high-resolution satellite imagery and

deep learning methods, which has enabled large-scale

mapping of non-forest trees at the individual tree

level. This includes the detection of 1.8 billion trees

in West African Sahara and Sahel covering areas that

had previously been perceived and categorized as

bare dry lands or deserts (Brandt etal. 2020). There-

fore, it is now possible—and needed—to examine

more closely how trees outside of forests are related

to people’s food and nutrition security in low- and

middle-income countries.

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The second knowledge gap that we aim to address

is how diﬀerent forest management systems can

contribute to people’s diets, as management sys-

tems around forests can inﬂuence how people use

forests and trees as a food source (Adhikari et al.

2016; Andrieu et al. 2019). For example, enforce-

ment of environmental policies in Nepal combined

with increased timber extraction has caused reduc-

tions in local livestock holdings due to lack of fod-

der resources, resulting in a worsening of people’s

food security (Dhakal et al. 2011). The authors of

this study suggested that policies could alternatively

promote agroforestry systems combined with com-

munity-based forest management to gain both forest

protection and better food security for local commu-

nities. This suggestion was later supported by another

Nepalese study which, based on national survey data

from 3064 rural households, found that households

who used resources from community-based forests

experienced higher levels of calorie adequacy com-

pared to households using government-owned forests

(Paudel 2018). Furthermore, a study from Tanzania

assessed the eﬀects of community-based forestry

on wealth, food security and child health, and found

improvements in household food security (measured

by meals/day and ﬁsh and meat consumption) in areas

with community-based forest management compared

to areas without (Pailler etal. 2015). Also, a study in

Cameroon reported that more than half of the com-

munity forest users were highly dependent on the for-

est resources, as these resources provided 61–100% of

their income, food, energy and material needs (Ngang

etal. 2018).

While these case studies from Nepal, Tanzania and

Cameroon go beyond broad-scale studies that treat

forests as a homogenous landscape feature, they tend

to use broad food security metrics as opposed to more

detailed measures of dietary quality. This absence of

detailed dietary quality metrics was highlighted by a

recent review of 30 publications on linkages between

social forestry (the term was used by the authors to

describe initiatives linking communities with sustain-

able forest management) and food security in Asia.

The authors found that none of the publications exam-

ined how diﬀerent forest management systems aﬀect

the dietary quality of local communities (Yahya etal.

2022). When examining the forest-diet relationship, it

is important to move beyond crude measures of food

security in favour of more detailed dietary quality

metrics (where the data allows), as these measures

provide more insight into the mechanisms driving the

observed positive relationships.

In this study, we examined the eﬀects of (1)

unclassiﬁed tree cover (i.e., individual trees and small

forest patches outside established forests) and (2)

diﬀerent types of forest management systems (e.g.,

Government Forest Reserve, Government Forest

Plantation, Private Forest, Participatory Forest Man-

agement (PFM)) on people’s dietary quality, meas-

ured by macro- and micronutrient adequacy levels.

By doing so, we demonstrate how diﬀerent tree and

forest systems can have varying eﬀects on diets—and

we thereby contribute to a more nuanced understand-

ing of forest-tree-diet linkages.

Material andmethods

Study sites

Tanzania is an appropriate country for studying the

linkages between forests, trees, and people’s diets

for a number of reasons. First, the country hosts sev-

eral large bio-diverse forests (Capitani et al. 2019;

Kacholi etal. 2015) and around 30% of the popula-

tion live within 5km of a forest (Newton etal. 2020).

Second, casestudies from diﬀerent parts of the coun-

try have shown how communities rely on forest-based

resources in their diet (Murray etal. 2001; Ceppi and

Nielsen 2014; Kaya and Lyana 2014; Pollom et al.

2020). For example, a study in the North Uluguru

and the West Usambara Mountains revealed that local

communities consumed 114 diﬀerent indigenous for-

est plant foods (Msuya etal. 2010). Another study

among women living in close proximity to forests in

the East Usambara Mountains identiﬁed 92 wild food

species and found these wild foods to be an impor-

tant source of vitamin A (31% of intake), vitamin C

(20%), and iron (19%) for both women and children

(Powell et al. 2013). Furthermore, deforestation in

rural areas of Tanzania has been shown to reduce peo-

ple’s fruit and vegetable consumption, with negative

eﬀects on vitamin A adequacy (Hall etal. 2022). Tan-

zania’s forests are also under increasing pressure from

agricultural expansion and logging activities (Dog-

gart etal. 2020). Finally, despite more than 20years

of sustained economic growth, culminating in its

transition from low-income to lower middle-income

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status in 2020, the proportion of people suﬀering

from severe food insecurity has increased from 21 to

26% between 2016 and 2022 (FAO et al. 2022). In

addition, the number of people not able to aﬀord a

healthy diet increased from 49 to 52 million between

2017 and 2020, corresponding to 88% of the coun-

try’s population (FAO etal. 2022).

In this study, we collected data from eight villages

in East Usambara Mountains and Uluguru Mountains

in Tanzania from October to December 2021 (Fig.1).

The villages were selected to represent diﬀerent for-

est management systems, while being relatively simi-

lar in terms of people’s living standards, agricultural

practices, and climatic conditions.

Within each of the eight villages, we surveyed

women with at least one child under the age of ﬁve

years, since this group is particularly vulnerable to

nutritional deﬁciencies (Lartey 2008). We selected

60 women from each village using a random stratiﬁed

sampling technique. That is, every village consisted

of four to eight hamlets, and we selected respondents

from each hamlet proportional to its relative popu-

lation size. For example, when 25% of the village’s

total population lived in one hamlet, we would ran-

domly select 25% (or 15 women) of our respondents

from that hamlet.

Forest management classiﬁcation

We base our forest categories on Tanzania’s oﬃcial

forest classiﬁcations (United Republic of Tanzania,

1998, 2002). The country’s forests are grouped into

the following categories of ownership: (1) Central

Government Forest Reserve—owned and managed by

East Usambara Mountains

Uluguru Mountains

Kiwanda

Lat: -5.05511, Long: 38.71170

Elevation: 229 m

MPI: 0.74

Chalagule

Lat: -6.87596, Long: 38.68114

Elevation: 1080 m

MPI: 0.62

Shambangeda

Lat: -5.06322, Long: 38.628376

Elevation: 948 m

MPI: 0.62

Kilemela

Lat: -5.11557, Long: 38.71277

Elevation: 326 m

MPI: 0.71

Vinele

Lat: -7.03603, Long: 37.63597

Elevation: 1384 m

MPI: 0.69

Tchenzema

Lat: -7.10713, Long: 38.58642

Elevation: 1704 m

MPI: 0.67

Tongwe

Lat: -5.11557, Long: 38.71277

Elevation: 258 m

MPI: 0.48

Bombani

Lat: -5.13315, Long: 38.70266

Elevation: 193 m

MPI: 0.43

Government Forest Reserve

Government Plantation

Private Forest

Participatory Forest

Management

East Usambara Mountains

Uluguru Mountains

Fig. 1 Forest management systems, position coordinates,

elevation and mean Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

Living Standarddimension across the eight villages included

in the study. The red dots represent the survey respondents’

homes and show variation in vitamin A adequacy levels within

and across sites. The locations have been randomly displaced

up to 300m for conﬁdentiality purposes

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the central government, including both forest reserves

and forest plantations), (2) Local Authority Forest

Reserve—owned and managed by district authorities,

(3) Village Forest Reserve—owned and managed by

a village government, (4) Private Forest owned and

managed by private companies, and (5) forest patches

in non-reserved forest land—covering small tree plots

less than 10 hectares, sometimes owned by the Cen-

tral Government but most often with open access.

In addition, Community Based Forest Manage-

ment (CBFM) takes place on village land. Villagers

take full ownership and management responsibilities

for the forest, and they also collect forest royalties

from the sales of forest products and services. Finally,

Joint Forest Management is based on a partnership

between communities and the government and has

typically been introduced in Central Government For-

est Reserves that were previously under the manage-

ment of the central government (United Republic of

Tanzania 2008). The partnership means that commu-

nities are given more responsibilities in terms of man-

aging the use of forest resources, while the central

government continues to hold ownership (Mbwambo

etal. 2012).

We regrouped these categories based on the actors

managing the forest. Village Forest Reserve, CBFM

and Joint Forest Management were combined into

one category named Participatory Forest Manage-

ment (PFM). This regrouping is reasonable because

(1) forest access was similar across these three types,

and (2) forest management is given to local commu-

nities—yet with some diﬀerences in forest ownership

(Khatun etal. 2015; Luswaga and Nuppenau 2020).

Also, PFM is formally used as an umbrella term in

Tanzania to cover the above-mentioned categories

(United Republic of Tanzania 1998). Using QGIS and

shapeﬁles showing oﬃcial forest boundaries provided

by the Central Government of Tanzania, we renamed

and divided Central Government Forest Reserves into

two groups: Government Forest Reserves and Govern-

ment Forest Plantations. We renamed forest patches

in non-reserved forest land to unclassiﬁed tree cover

and expanded the category to include all trees outside

of the above-mentioned forest categories, regardless

of the plot size to also capture scattered trees in the

landscape. Private Forest was maintained as a sepa-

rate category. We did not include Local Authority

Forest Reserve since this type of ownership was not

present in any of our study sites.

Forest and tree data

We collected GPS coordinates of the respondents’

homes, allowing us to measure the amount of tree

cover in each respondent’s nearby surroundings. In

this study, a tree is deﬁned as a plant with a more or

less permanent shoot system that is supported by a

single trunk of wood (Mbuya etal. 1994). We used

a Very High Resolution (VHR) map of African tree

cover in 2019 (Reiner etal. 2023), which was created

using a deep learning model to segment tree cover

at the individual tree level, based on 3-m resolution

PlanetScope. We spatially aggregated the binary tree

cover data to extract the percentage tree cover in

2000-m radius buﬀer circles around each respond-

ent’s house. We used a radius of 2000m since this is

the distance most wild foods are collected from peo-

ple’s homes (Layton etal. 1991; Powell etal. 2011).

We then overlaid this with shapeﬁles provided by the

Tanzanian government on polygons of Government

Forest Reserves, Government Forest Plantations,

Private Forests, and PFMs. For each respondent, we

thus obtained the percentage tree cover within each

of the ﬁve forest/tree categories: Government Forest

Reserve, Government Forest Plantation, Private For-

est, PFM, and unclassiﬁed tree cover.

Outcome variables

Most studies on forest-tree-diet linkages use food

security metrics such as days without food, the house-

hold food insecurity access scale (Donn etal. 2016;

Tata Ngome etal. 2019), or dietary diversity scores

(Galway etal. 2018; Rasolofoson etal. 2018). Here,

we go beyond these metrics by estimating people’s

macro- and micronutrient intake,with our main out-

come variables being people’s energy, protein, iron,

zinc, and vitamin A adequacy. Nutrient adequacy

ratios (NAR) were calculated from detailed dietary

recall surveys, which aim to record every food item

that the respondent has consumed within the past

24 hours. The 24-h dietary recalls were carried out

twice within a week on two non-consecutive days to

account for unusual dietary intakes (Gibson 2005).

Quantities of each food item were estimated using

local serving size aids (e.g., cups, plates, spoons) and

photo aids.

We then estimated macro- and micronutrient

contents of all reported food items using nutritional

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information from food composition tables (FCTs). A

number of FCTs were used due to missing or incom-

plete nutrient information. We used data from the

Tanzanian tables (Lukmanji and Hertzmark 2008)

as much as possible. When data were missing, we

sourced data from the FCTs for Kenya (FAO 2018a),

Malawi (MAFOODS 2019), Zambia (NFNC 2009)

and West Africa (Vincent etal. 2020)—in that order.

Since all of our respondents were interviewed

twice within one week, we were able to calculate the

usual intake with a Multiple Source Method (MSM)

(Tooze 2020). The methodology consists of three

sequential steps: Initially, the probability of consum-

ing a particular food on a given day is estimated for

each individual. Subsequently, the usual amount

of food intake on days when consumption occurs is

estimated individually. Finally, the overall usual food

intake across all days is computed by multiplying

the probability of food consumption with the usual

amount of food intake on consumption days (Hart-

tig et al. 2011). We then calculated mean NAR by

comparing the estimated nutrient intakes with aver-

age recommended nutrient intakes for energy (FAO

etal. 2002), protein (WHO 2007), iron, zinc and vita-

min A (WHO and FAO 2004). The adequacy ratios

accounted for whether women were pregnant or

breastfeeding. We note that our ﬁnal adequacy ratios

might be underestimated due to known issues with

underreporting of certain food items, for example in

cases where respondents eat from a shared bowl (Gib-

son 2005). Therefore, we interpret the calculated ade-

quacy levels as relative values between respondents

rather than total values to be compared with national

or international averages.

We calculated dietary diversity scores (DDS)

given that more diverse diets are a good proxy for

micronutrient intake and overall dietary quality (Ken-

nedy etal. 2007; Verger etal. 2019). To measure die-

tary diversity, we used the Minimum Dietary Diver-

sity Score for Women (MDD-W), which categorizes

foods into ten groups: (1) Grains, white roots and

tubers, and plantains, (2) pulses (beans, peas and len-

tils), (3) nuts and seeds, (4) dairy, (5) meat, poultry

and ﬁsh, (6) eggs, (7) dark green leafy vegetables, (8)

other vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables, (9) other

vegetables, and (10) other fruits (FAO 2021; FAO

and FHI 360 2016).

In addition to calculating DDS, we focused spe-

ciﬁcally on the consumption of each of the six most

nutritionally important food groups (‘grains, white

roots and tubers, and plantains’, ‘pulses’, ‘meat, poul-

try and ﬁsh’, ‘dark green leafy vegetables’, ‘other

vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables’, and ‘other

fruits’). Together, these six groups represent 99% of

respondents’ nutrient intake (i.e., for protein, iron,

zinc, and vitamin A) (Fig.S2).

Covariates

We controlled for a number of variables known to

aﬀect people’s diets and thus confound the rela-

tionship between forests, trees, and diets. We con-

trolled for agricultural practices (i.e., total crop

count, homegarden presence, tropical livestock units

(TLU))—as more diverse crop and/or livestock pro-

duction can lead to better overall dietary quality (Ali

and Khan 2013; Jones 2017; Headey etal. 2018; Sib-

hatu and Qaim 2018; Christian etal. 2019). We cal-

culated TLU using conversion factors for each live-

stock owned by the household according to FAO’s

guidelines (FAO 2018b). We also controlled for indi-

vidual and household characteristics known to aﬀect

diets, including age (Malapit etal. 2015), education

level measured as years of schooling (Torheim etal.

2004), living standards, region, and household size

(Workicho etal. 2016; Powell etal. 2017). To assess

living standards, we used the Multidimensional Pov-

erty Index (MPI) Living Standard dimension, ranging

from 1 (deprived) to 0 (not deprived) and based on six

indicators; cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water,

electricity, housing, and assets (Alkire etal. 2021).

We used the distance to the nearest road from the

household (based on respondents’ estimated walking

time) as a proxy for market access, which is known

to inﬂuence people’s consumption of speciﬁc foods

(Ickowitz etal. 2019). We used distance to the near-

est road rather than other variables such as distance

to the nearest market as local people had diﬀerent

perceptions of market deﬁnitions (e.g., minor stand

by the road, permanent market, travelling market).

Finally, when using one of the ﬁve tree or forest cat-

egories as the ‘treatment’ variable (e.g., unclassiﬁed

tree cover), we controlled for the other four catego-

ries (e.g., Government Forest Reserve, Government

Forest Plantation, Private Forest, and PFM). TableS1

provides an overview of all covariates.

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Statistical approach

We tested whether tree cover (%) within our ﬁve tree

and forest categories was associated with people’s

dietary adequacy and dietary diversity. We employed

Covariate Balancing Generalized Propensity Score

(CBGPS) matching, which is a quasi-experimental

technique. CBGPS was chosen because it is robust to

model misspeciﬁcations and applicable in the case of

a continuous treatment (Imai and Ratkovic 2014). The

weights produced by CBGPS minimize the correla-

tion between treatment and observable pre-treatment

covariates when included in the subsequent regres-

sion models. This reduces the dependence (endogene-

ity) between treatment assignment and outcome given

covariates. If not addressed, this dependence may

lead to biased estimates of the eﬀects of tree cover on

people’s dietary quality. CBGPS extends traditional

propensity score methods used for binary treatments

by creating inverse propensity score weights (Fong

etal. 2018). To calculate CBGPS weights, we used

the control variables mentioned earlier as pre-treat-

ment variables: Crop count, homegarden presence,

TLU, age and educational level of the respondent,

MPI living standards, household size, region, dis-

tance to nearest road and the remaining four forest

and tree categories not acting as the treatment. We

used the CBPS package (Fong etal. 2022) in R (ver-

sion 4.3.2) to perform the matching analyses. Corre-

lations between treatment (tree cover inside Govern-

ment Forest Reserve, Government Forest Plantation,

Private Forest, and PFM and unclassiﬁed tree cover

included one by one controlling for the other types)

and covariates were suﬃciently reduced after match-

ing (Fig.S1). When using NAR as the outcome vari-

able (i.e., adequacy levels for energy, protein, iron,

zinc and vitamin A), we ﬁtted a linear model using

the CBGPS weights, with tree cover within the ﬁve

diﬀerent types of tree and forest systems as the key

predictor of interest. When using the consumption of

the six focus food groups (grams of unique food items

consumed within each food group), we used the same

model speciﬁcation. When using DDS as the out-

come, we applied a quasipoisson generalized linear

model to account for the non-continuous categorical

outcome variable (Warton etal. 2016). We checked

for overdispersion using the ‘dispersiontest’ function

in the AER package in R, but found no overdispersion

in our models and therefore did not use the negative

binomial distribution (Kleiber et al. 2020). Finally,

we used the sandwich package to compute cluster-

robust standard errors at the village level to adjust for

the lack of independence of households within the

same village (Zeileis etal. 2020).

We used both a pairwise correlation matrix as

well as the variance inﬂation factor (VIF) to assess

potential collinearity among independent vari-

ables included in our models. All correlation coeﬃ-

cients were < 0.5 and VIF did not exceed a value of

5. Lastly, to check the robustness of our results, we

re-ran all models using a 1000-m radius instead of

2000-m radius (TableS2).

Results

Our study has two main ﬁndings: (1) People living

in areas with more unclassiﬁed tree cover (covering

individual trees and forest patches) appear to have

higher adequacy levels of protein, iron, zinc, and vita-

min A. (2) People living in areas with greater tree

cover within PFM appear to have higher adequacy

levels of energy, iron, zinc, and vitamin A (Fig. 2;

TableS1).

Positive associations betweenunclassiﬁed tree

cover anddietary quality

We found that the amount of unclassiﬁed tree cover

is positively associated with people’s adequacy lev-

els of protein and all three micronutrients. That is, a

1% increase in unclassiﬁed tree cover translates into

higher adequacy levels of 0.6% for protein (p < 0.001),

0.2% for iron (p < 0.05), 0.3% for zinc (p < 0.05), and

0.5% for vitamin A (p < 0.001) (Fig.2A).

With the mean unclassiﬁed tree cover being

28.9%, an increase from no tree cover to this level

would translate into 16.4%, 4.7%, 9.8%, and 14%

higher adequacy levels of protein, iron, zinc, and vita-

min A, respectively. Although such increases may

not appear substantial, they are notable given that

dietary adequacy is very low in our study area. For

example, only 22% of our respondents meet protein

requirements, no respondents meet iron requirements,

4% meet zinc requirements, and 14% meet vitamin A

requirements.

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However, such translation should be considered

with caution since it assumes a continuous linear

eﬀect between increases in unclassiﬁed tree cover

and people’s nutrient adequacy. Recent studies have

shown how forests and trees can be linked to diets in

non-linear ways (Friant etal. 2019; Rasmussen etal.

2019; Kumeh et al. 2022). Likewise, the potential

underestimation of our respondents’ nutrient ade-

quacy levels merits caution when interpreting these

estimates.

Along with eﬀects on nutrient adequacy levels, we

also examined the eﬀects of unclassiﬁed tree cover

on people’s intake of six key food groups. We found

a positive association with the intake of three food

groups: ‘meat, poultry and ﬁsh’ (p < 0.05), ‘other

vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables’ (p < 0.001) and

‘other fruits’ (p < 0.001) (Fig.2B). Respondents with

above median levels of unclassiﬁed tree cover on

average consumed 111g per day of ‘meat, poultry

and ﬁsh’ compared to only 40g for those respond-

ents with below median tree cover (Table1; Fig.3).

Fig. 2 Post-matching

results for how tree cover

within ﬁve diﬀerent types

of tree and forest manage-

ment systems is associated

with people’s A macro- and

micronutrient adequacy,

and B intake of four key

food groups. Results are

not shown for the two

food groups ‘grains, white

roots and tubers, and

plantains’ and ‘pulses’ as

no signiﬁcant results were

found. P-values: * < 0.05,

** < 0.01, *** < 0.001.

N = 465

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Given that 91% of the total amount of ‘meat, poultry

and ﬁsh’ consumed was ﬁsh (Fig.S2), it is likely that

this was the main driver of higher protein, iron and

zinc intakes for those respondents living in areas with

higher unclassiﬁed tree cover. This is in line with

other studies that have documented the importance

of ﬁsh consumption for dietary quality in East Africa

(Wessels etal. 2023). Furthermore, it is likely that

higher intakes of ‘other vitaminA-rich fruits and veg-

etables’ (especially mangos and papayas (Fig. S2))

explain the observed positive associations between

unclassiﬁed tree cover and the higher adequacy levels

of vitamin A.

Positive associations betweenparticipatory forest

management anddietary quality

We also found that the extent of tree cover classiﬁed

as PFM is positively associated with higher adequacy

levels of energy, iron, zinc, and vitamin A as well

as higher dietary diversity scores (Fig.S3). That is,

a 1% increase in tree cover within PFM translates

into increases of nutrient adequacy levels of 0.7% for

energy (p < 0.05), 0.4% for iron (p < 0.001), 0.8% for

zinc (p < 0.01), and 1.3% for vitamin A (p < 0.001)

(Fig. 2A). This is likely driven by higher consump-

tion of ﬁsh, other vitamin A-rich fruits and vegeta-

bles, and other fruits, as the consumption of these

food groups was also signiﬁcantly positively associ-

ated with tree cover within PFM (Fig.2B).

By contrast, tree cover within Government For-

est Plantations was negatively associated with ade-

quacy levels of zinc (−1.3%, p < 0.05) and vitamin

A (−1.9%, p < 0.001). Similarly, we found negative

associations between tree cover within Government

Forest Reserves and vitamin A (−0.4%, p < 0.05) and

Private Forests and people’s adequacy level of zinc

(−5.1%, p < 0.05). These results might be explained

by lower consumption of vitamin A-rich fruits and

vegetables and dark green leafy vegetables by people

living in areas with more tree cover within Govern-

ment Forest Plantation (− 5.9%, p < 0.01, − 1.6%,

p < 0.05, respectively). Likewise, people living in

areas with more tree cover within Government Forest

Reserves had lower consumption of vitaminA-rich

fruits and vegetables (−3.1%, p < 0.05).

Discussion

Trees and forest patches outside forests are beneﬁcial

for dietary quality

Our ﬁndings suggest that trees and small forest

patches outside of established forest reserves can

improve people’s nutrient adequacy. These ﬁndings

demonstrate the importance of moving beyond forest/

non-forest dichotomies,which have been a common

approach in the forest-diet literature (e.g. Johnson

et al. 2013; Galway et al. 2018). Also, the existing

bulk of research on relationships between tree-based

farming systems and food and nutrition security

(Vansant etal. 2022) tends to focus on trees in crop-

lands and thereby dismisses the potential contribu-

tions from individual trees in fallows, pasture, around

settlements or along roads, lakes and rivers. By using

VHR satellite data, we were able to include trees that

would not be accounted for otherwise—both on farms

and scattered trees outside of forests. While existing

studies attending to on-farm trees often rely on self-

reported counts or time-consuming ﬁeld measure-

ments, our method can be extrapolated and poten-

tially up-scaled to cover even greater areas.

However, we were not able to distinguish between

diﬀerent types of trees (e.g., timber trees vs fruit

trees), which limits the ability to tease apart causal

mechanisms between tree cover and dietary quality.

For example, we found a positive signiﬁcant rela-

tionship between unclassiﬁed tree cover and people’s

vitamin A adequacy levels as well as their consump-

tion of vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables (Fig. 2

and TableS1). These relationships indicate that peo-

ple living in areas with higher tree cover might be

consuming more vitamin A-rich fruits harvested from

trees, such as mango and papaya. When looking at

where people source their vitamin A-rich fruits and

vegetables, we observe that people living in areas with

above median tree cover source a higher proportion of

this food group from the wild (4.5% as compared to

0% for people living in areas with below median tree

cover) as well as from cultivated ﬁelds (61% as com-

pared to 52%) (Table2). Such explanation would be

in line with other studies that have established a posi-

tive role of fruit trees for diets (Jamnadass etal. 2011;

Bostedt etal. 2016; Mathewos etal. 2018; Omotayo

and Aremu 2020; Kulsum and Susandarini 2023). For

example, a study from Ethiopia found that growing

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fruit trees was positively associated with higher die-

tary diversity among women and young children in

the households (Desalegn and Jagiso 2020).

We also found a positive association between

unclassiﬁed tree cover and adequacy levels of protein,

iron, and zinc. This may be explained by higher ﬁsh

consumption among people living in areas with high

tree cover. Positive associations between tree cover

and ﬁsh consumption have also been documented in

both Indonesia (Ickowitz etal. 2023) and Nigeria (Lo

etal. 2019), suggesting that trees provide ecosystem

services that enhance the availability of ﬁsh stocks.

While we do observe a marginal higher proportion of

ﬁsh being sourced from the wild among people living

in areas with higher tree cover (1.8% as compared to

1.4% among people living in areas with below median

tree cover), most of the consumed ﬁsh is purchased

from the market rather than caught in local rivers and

lakes (Table2). Nevertheless, the nutritional impor-

tance of ﬁsh in East Africa is notable (Béné et al.

2016). It has been estimated that utilizing the entire

amount of the potential sustainable catch of Silver

cyprinid (small pelagic ﬁsh) in Lake Victoria would

provide a suﬃcient daily source of vitamin B12, cal-

cium, zinc and iron to approximately 33 million peo-

ple in the region (Wessels etal. 2023). Twenty-ﬁve

percent of our respondents consumed less than 100g

of ﬁsh relish per day. Thus, a relatively small increase

in ﬁsh consumption may be a promising avenue to

increase nutrient adequacy levels.

Linkages betweenforest management systems

anddietary quality

It is well established that the type of forest manage-

ment system in place matters for the type and quantity

of products that people can harvest from the forest—

and thereby inﬂuencethe potential of forests to allevi-

ate poverty (Miller etal. 2020). Yet, the role of forest

management systems in relation to dietary quality has

been somewhat overlooked,especially in quantitative

Table 1 Mean values of covariates for respondents living in areas with above vs below median levels of unclassiﬁed tree cover and

in areas with vs without PFM within a 2000-m radius

N = 465

Mean (SD)

Variables Unclassiﬁed tree cover Participatory forest management

(PFM)

Above median Below median With Without

Age 30.19 (7.44) 29.16 (8.11) 29.06 (7.79) 30.06 (7.78)

Household size 5.24 (1.84) 5.13 (2) 5.21 (2.07) 5.17 (1.82)

Number of crops cultivated 5.07 (2.78) 4.6 (2.63) 4.87 (2.73) 4.81 (2.71)

Tropical livestock unit (TLU) 0.26 (0.85) 0.26 (0.5) 0.29 (0.8) 0.24 (0.63)

Distance to nearest road (minutes walking) 95.7 (163.63) 68.84 (88.92) 122.44 (180.44) 57.24 (81.01)

Multidimensional poverty index (MPI) 0.63 (0.2) 0.62 (0.16) 0.62 (0.18) 0.63 (0.18)

Energy adequacy ratio (%) 0.77 (0.17) 0.65 (0.22) 0.71 (0.19) 0.71 (0.21)

Protein adequacy ratio (%) 0.72 (0.26) 0.53 (0.31) 0.60 (0.28) 0.64 (0.31)

Iron adequacy ratio (%) 0.44 (0.12) 0.39 (0.14) 0.42 (0.13) 0.41 (0.13)

Zinc adequacy ratio (%) 0.6 (0.2) 0.48 (0.22) 0.54 (0.22) 0.54 (0.22)

Vitamin A adequacy ratio (%) 0.62 (0.25) 0.56 (0.25) 0.63 (0.26) 0.56 (0.24)

DDS 3.69 (1.45) 3.97 (1.36) 4.1 (1.5) 3.67 (1.36)

Grains, white roots and tubers, and plantains (mean g/day) 1044.8 (406.25) 908.9 (432) 997.06 (427.27) 964.46 (422.76)

Pulses (mean g/day) 54.43 (70.56) 55.33 (78.37) 50.75 (70.76) 57.46 (76.72)

Meat, poultry and ﬁsh (mean g/day) 110.71 (115.5) 40.12 (68.5) 73.36 (97.25) 76.82 (103.84)

Dark green leafy vegetables (mean g/day) 48.89 (56.5) 57.29 (76.21) 43.23 (48.52) 59.23 (75.91)

Other vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables (mean g/day) 101.81 (197.07) 23.31 (81.97) 99.45 (182.17) 39.66 (132.21)

Other fruits (mean g/day) 45.81 (148.78) 51.76 (199.27) 55.65 (199.2) 44.49 (159.37)

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Fig. 3 Share of energy, protein and micronutrients com-

ing from the diﬀerent MDD-W food groups, broken down

into respondents living in areas with above vs below median

unclassiﬁed tree cover. We have merged ‘nuts and seeds’,

‘dairy’, ‘eggs’ and ‘other vegetables’ into ‘other’ because

these food groups contributed less than 1% of total nutrient

intake. The category ‘sugar sweetened beverages’ was added

to the ﬁgure as it contributed 4.5% and 3.5% of energy intake

for respondents living in areas with above and below median

unclassiﬁed tree cover, respectively. N = 465

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studies. Here, we ﬁnd substantial variations across

diﬀerent forest management systems, with positive

eﬀects seen in PFM systems and negative eﬀects of

other forest management systems (Government Forest

Reserves and Government Forest Plantations).

These negative eﬀects on people’s diets exemplify

how forest conservation initiatives and proﬁt-oriented

forestry might have unintended consequences for food

and nutrition security when people’s access to these

forests is restricted. For example, the respondents in

our study sites were only allowed to enter the Govern-

ment Forest Reserves and Government Forest Planta-

tions once a week to collect fuelwood and wild plants.

When entering the Government Forest Reserves, they

were not allowed to bring a machete, which made

the dense part of the forests impenetrable. Also, the

Government Forest Plantations were dominated by

one exotic teak tree species (Tectona grandis) with

low levels of biodiversity and relatively few wild

foods to ﬁnd. Multiple studies from various parts of

the world have described how forest conservation

can lead to negative social outcomes if local people

are not appropriately compensated or included in the

management regimes (Blaney etal. 2009; Ibarra etal.

2011; Sylvester etal. 2016; Nakamura and Hanazaki

2017; Campbell etal. 2021). For example, Hall etal.

(2014) assessed both ecological and livelihood con-

sequences of the newly established Derema Forest,

a large protected forest corridor in East Usambara

Mountains. Two years after establishment, the area

appeared to succeed in terms of functioning as an

ecologically important corridor but failed to mitigate

livelihood losses especially for the poorest people

(Hall et al. 2014). Likewise, forest conservation in

Oaxaca, Mexico was perceived to make indigenous

communities more food insecure as local community

members found a decrease in subsistence crop yields,

land available for agriculture and shortened fallow

cycles to be a result of implemented conservation pol-

icies (Ibarra etal. 2011). More recently, a study from

Southwestern Ghana suggested that forest conserva-

tion initiatives should be combined with so-called

‘food security corridors’ in degraded forest-fringes to

ensure that local populations beneﬁt from both forests

and cultivated resources—which in turn can reduce

exploitation of the inner forest reserve (Kumeh etal.

2022). Yet, we note that previous studies have also

shown how mixed plantations and private forests can

provide a variety of beneﬁcial ecosystem services,

including local food provision (Liu etal. 2018). For

example, a study from the Congo Basin examined

land use competition between timber concessions and

fruit trees harvested by local communities and found

that both interests could co-exist as long as timber

harvesting only targeted the largest trees and allowed

appropriate minimum distances between the remain-

ing trees to ensure gene ﬂow for future forest regen-

eration (Snook etal. 2015).

It is also important to emphasize that PFM is an

umbrella term that covers diﬀerent sub-management

systems (e.g., Joint Forest Management, Commu-

nity Forest Management and Village Forest Man-

agement). Although we found it reasonable to group

these into one category based on similarities in terms

Table 2 The share of six focus food groups coming from diﬀerent sources (cultivated, purchased or wild) among respondents living

with above vs below median unclassiﬁed tree cover within a 2000-m radius

N = 465

Source (% of food items)

Food group Cultivated Purchased Wild

Above median Below median Above median Below median Above median Below median

Grains, white roots and tubers,

and plantains

33.5 30.2 65.8 68.4 0.6 1.4

Pulses 9.8 19.9 89.9 79.5 0.3 0.6

Meat, poultry and ﬁsh 0.2 0.7 97.9 97.9 1.8 1.4

Dark green leafy vegetables 30.9 35.4 51.3 45.6 17.8 19.0

Other vitamin A-rich fruits and

vegetables

60.9 52.4 34.5 47.6 4.5 0.0

Other fruits 45.1 29.4 51.0 64.7 3.9 5.9

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of access to resources, these sub-systems may diﬀer

in other aspects that may aﬀect dietary quality. For

example, a study from Tanzania comparing Commu-

nity Forest Management and Joint Forest Manage-

ment found that the level of participation was higher

among communities with Joint Forest management

(Luswaga and Nuppenau 2020), yet the study did not

measure diﬀerences in resource use. Also, PFM is not

always found to have the anticipated positive eﬀects

on local livelihoods, and potential co-beneﬁts are

most often dependent on site-speciﬁc contextual fac-

tors (Duguma etal. 2018; Hajjar and Oldekop 2018).

For example, participatory forest initiatives in Nepal

have been centred around timber extraction and bio-

diversity conservation, while disregarding food secu-

rity outcomes for local people (Khatri etal. 2017). In

other words, while the results of this study suggest

that the inclusion of local communities in forest man-

agement systems is more likely to produce dietary

beneﬁts, as compared to more exclusive and inacces-

sible forests management systems, PFM should not

be perceived as a panacea to improve food and nutri-

tion security.

Policy implications andfuture research directions

Our ﬁndings have policy relevance in terms of

future strategies for improving local people’s food

and nutrition security, particularly in rural areas of

low- and middle-income countries. In particular,

our ﬁndings have two key policy implications:

1. Decision-makers should support initiatives

towards multi-functional and nutrition-rich land-

scapes through the promotion of trees and forest

patches outside established forest reserves and in

near surroundings of the targeted populations.

2. Because we show positive eﬀects of PFM sys-

tems on local people’s diets, but negative eﬀects

of other forest management systems, decision-

makers should attend to sustainable food extrac-

tion from community-based forests (e.g., api-

culture and foraging of wild foods and medical

plants).

Moreover, our study allows us to point to a num-

ber of directions for future research. Firstly, future

research on linkages between forests, trees and

dietary quality should move beyond dichotomies

of forest versus non-forest. Trees grow not only in

established forest blocks or on farmlands but are

scattered across the landscape and are present along

roads, rivers, and lakes. Secondly, while we have

shown the potential importance of these scattered

trees (not constituting a forest) in Tanzania, more

work is needed to examine whether these relation-

ships hold in other countries and contexts. Thirdly,

our approach does not allow us to tease apart the

dietary contributions from diﬀerent tree species.

Future research eﬀorts would beneﬁt from identiﬁ-

cation of and distinction between diﬀerent tree spe-

cies and their eﬀect on people’s diets.

Acknowledgements We like to thank our research assistants

Anna Peter Tesha, Hope Masanja, Kudra Ally, Maria Machilu,

Mercy Mtaita, Monica Chande and Naamani Mwaisenye.

Author contributions R.S.O. conceived the idea. R.S.O.,

C.J.K., J.K., J.M. and L.V.R designed the data collection pro-

cess. R.S.O. carried out data collection. R.S.O., F.R. and

C.J.K. conducted the spatial forest and tree classiﬁcations.

R.S.O., L.V.R., C.H. and B.d.B. designed the analysis. R.S.O.

conducted the analysis. F.R., L.V.R., B.d.B., C.H. and C.J.K.

contributed with interpretations of results. All authors con-

tributed to the writing of the paper. All authors reviewed the

manuscript.

Funding Open access funding provided by Copenhagen Uni-

versity. The research for this paper was funded by the European

Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon

2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant Agreement

No. 853222 FORESTDIET).

Data availability The data are available from the authors

upon reasonable request and with the permission of University

of Copenhagen.

Declarations

Competing interest The authors have no relevant ﬁnancial or

non-ﬁnancial interests to disclose.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Com-

mons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits

use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any

medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the

original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Crea-

tive Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The

images or other third party material in this article are included

in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated

otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not

included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your

intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds

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from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit

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Even low levels of tree cover improve dietary quality in West Africa

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2024

Forests are attracting attention as a promising avenue to provide nutritious and ‘free’ food without damaging the environment. Yet, we lack knowledge on the extent to which this holds in areas with sparse tree cover, such as in West Africa. This is largely due to existing methods being poorly designed to quantify tree cover in drylands. Here, we estimate how various levels of tree cover across West Africa affect children’s (aged 12-59 months) consumption of vitamin A-rich foods. We do so by combining detailed tree cover estimates based on PlanetScope imagery (3 m resolution) with Demographic Health Survey data from more than 15,000 households. We find that the probability of consuming vitamin A-rich foods increases from 0.45 to 0.53 with an increase in tree cover from the median value of 8.8% to 16.8% (which is the tree cover level at which the predicted probability of consuming vitamin A-rich foods is highest). 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.

Quantifying the contribution of mangroves to local fish consumption in Indonesia: a cross-sectional spatial analysis

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2023

Diversity of wild edible fruits in the agroforestry area of Cigalontang Village, Tasikmalaya, Indonesia

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

Kulsum NNS, Susandarini R. 2023. Diversity of wild edible fruits in the agroforestry area of Cigalontang Village, Tasikmalaya, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 24: 4161-4167. Wild edible fruits are non-timber forest products that support the nutritional adequacy of communities around the forest. Scientific inventory and documentation of wild fruit plant diversity are important to reveal local resources' potential in supporting local communities food security. A study on wild edible fruits in the agroforestry area in Cigalontang Village aimed to document the diversity of fruit plant species and traditional knowledge of the community on food plants available from the forest. This study used semi-structured interviews with 63 respondents and guided fieldwork to identify natural habitats and collect specimens of wild edible fruits. The results showed that people of Cigalontang Village commonly consumed 49 wild edible fruit species belonging to 27 families. Zingiberaceae and Moraceae were two families with the highest number of wild edible fruit species mentioned by the respondents. All the fruits were consumed raw as fresh fruits, and some were known as ingredients for traditional medicine to treat minor health complaints. The community discussed the use of wild edible fruits with a review of the nutritional content based on relevant references. Results showed that the community used wild edible fruits for daily nutritional needs, not for sale. Both older and younger generations shared knowledge about the diversity of wild edible fruit plants and were closely related to local traditions kept within the frame of local wisdom. This knowledge, supported by local wisdom held by the community, is important to maintain the sustainability of fruit plant diversity and its conservation.

Wild foods contribute to women’s higher dietary diversity in India

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2023

Wild foods, from forests and common lands, can contribute to food and nutrition security. Most previous studies have established correlations between wild food consumption and children’s dietary diversity in Africa, but other groups and geographic contexts remain understudied. Here a rigorous quasi-experimental method was combined with monthly interval data to assess the contribution of wild foods to women’s diets. We collected 24 h diet recall data monthly, from November 2016 to November 2017, from 570 households in East India. We found that wild foods contributed positively to diets, especially in June and July (when consumption of wild foods was highest). Women who consumed wild foods had higher average dietary diversity scores (13% and 9% higher in June and July, respectively) and were more likely to consume nutrient-dense, dark-green leafy vegetables than those who did not. Our results underscore the importance of policies that increase knowledge of wild foods and protect people’s rights to access forests and other common lands for improved nutrition.

Putting small fish on the table: the underutilized potential of small indigenous fish to improve food and nutrition security in East Africa

Article

Full-text available

May 2023

Sub-Saharan Africa has a high prevalence of food insecurity. Small pelagic fish such as Silver cyprinid ( Rastrineobola argentea ) which is indigenous to Lake Victoria, can be a nutritious animal sourced food that contributes to a more nutrient dense diet. Potential sustainable catch of Silver cyprinid is estimated at 2 million tonnes yearly, which is four times the amount of the current catch. Whole sun-dried Silver cyprinid was purchased from several markets in Kenya and analysed for nutrient composition, microbial counts and metal content. The results show that utilizing the whole potential catch of Silver cyprinid would provide a significant daily source of vitamin B12, calcium, zinc and iron to the roughly 33 million people living in the Lake Victoria basin. Heavy metal concentration appears to be low, but other food safety aspects like microbial counts call for value chain improvements. We conclude that the underutilized potential of sun-dried Silver cyprinid could substantially contribute to fight malnutrition and food insecurity by providing an affordable nutrient dense animal sourced food to a large number of people. It also highlights the need to improve the value chains to increase the safety of these products.

Effects of agroforestry on grain yield of maize (Zea mays L.)—A global meta-analysis

Article

Full-text available

May 2023

Maize cropping systems, the world's most important cropping systems in terms of production volume, are responsible for many environmental problems, such as soil degradation and erosion. This calls for sustainable practises that enable environment-friendly production while generating sufficient output, as farmers and consumers worldwide depend on adequate yields. Agroforestry can offer solutions to both of these pressing concerns—food insecurity and adverse environmental impacts of intensive maize cultivation. This meta-analysis investigated the effects of agroforestry on maize (Zea mays L.) grain yield under different environmental and management regimes on a global scale. It is based on 1,215 pairwise data entries from 95 peer-reviewed studies. Overall, agroforestry increased median maize yields by 0.24 Mg ha−1 (7%) compared to tree/hedgerow-free maize monocultures. In subtropical and tropical regions, the median yield increment under agroforestry was 0.30 Mg ha−1 (+16%), and the best results were achieved using broadleaved trees (+0.42 Mg ha−1, +53%), especially N-fixing tree species (+0.56 Mg ha−1, +60%). Maize yields responded very well to the addition of tree prunings to the soil of the maize crop (+0.48 Mg ha−1, +24%). Rotating maize with other crops was beneficial if the intermediate crop is able to fix atmospheric N (+0.28 Mg ha−1, +13%). We found that hedgerow planting densities of at least 5,000 woody perennials ha−1 are required for the positive impacts of agroforestry on maize yields to take effect, and these effects increased with both tree age (+1.17 Mg ha−1, +48% under trees 11–15 years of age) and time under agroforestry (+0.85 Mg ha−1, 81% in response to >15 continuous maize seasons under agroforestry). In addition, they were particularly pronounced on sandy soils (+0.46 Mg ha−1, +23%), moderately acidic soils of pH 5–6 (+0.67 Mg ha−1, +35%), soils with <0.5 g kg−1 N (+1.19 Mg ha−1, +81%), soils with a plant-available water holding capacity <10 mm dm−1 (+1.10 Mg ha−1, +44%), and hyper-arid conditions (+0.60 Mg ha−1, +35%). These findings prove that if designed with due regard for local conditions and crop/tree species characteristics, agroforestry can be a powerful tool to increase food security and the sustainability of maize production systems.

More than one quarter of Africa’s tree cover is found outside areas previously classiﬁed as forest

Article

Full-text available

May 2023

The consistent monitoring of trees both inside and outside of forests is key to sustainable land management. Current monitoring systems either ignore trees outside forests or are too expensive to be applied consistently across countries on a repeated basis. Here we use the PlanetScope nanosatellite constellation, which delivers global very high-resolution daily imagery, to map both forest and non-forest tree cover for continental Africa using images from a single year. Our prototype map of 2019 (RMSE = 9.57%, bias = −6.9%) demonstrates that a precise assessment of all tree-based ecosystems is possible at continental scale, and reveals that 29% of tree cover is found outside areas previously classiﬁed as tree cover in state-of-the-art maps, such as in croplands and grassland. Such accurate mapping of tree cover down to the level of individual trees and consistent among countries has the potential to redeﬁne land use impacts in non-forest landscapes, move beyond the need for forest deﬁnitions, and build the basis for natural climate solutions and tree-related studies.

Agroforestry improves food security and reduces income variability in semi-arid tropics of central India

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2023
AGROFOREST SYST

This study, using cross sectional data from 170 farmers, empirically established that agroforestry positively affects food security and significantly reduces income variability among farmers in Bundelkhand region lying in semi-arid tropics of central India. A 1% increase in the tree density and tree diversity on farm significantly increases food security status by 0.231% and 0.141% points, respectively. Further variability in income reduces by around 0.38% and 0.16% with unit percentage increase in tree density and diversity, respectively. Therefore, amid the epoch of global climate change, agroforestry practice can be a crucial climate smart agriculture option. Farmers’ challenges were also identified and ranked by using Problem Confrontation Index (PCI). The study unveils that, efforts towards controlling stray animals, creating marketing environment, strengthening and streamlining the extension services for more technological and input support requires a strategic institutional framework as a key to upgrade agroforestry in the region.

Determining effect of tree on wheat growth and yield parameters at three tree-base distances in wheat/Jand (Prosopis cineraria) agroforestry systems

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2022
AGROFOREST SYST

Agroforestry is an integrated land use for agriculture and forestry which can ensure food security as well as forest cover. Notwithstanding, competition for natural resources can occur in some cases. Therefore, the present study was conducted to assess the effect of Prosopis cineraria on wheat growth and production. Wheat growth and production parameters were recorded at three distances from the tree base, as well as four aspects of the tree at five localities. The parameters recorded were; number of wheat plants m⁻², number of tillers plant⁻¹, leaf plant⁻¹, wheat biomass m⁻² and wheat production m⁻². The results showed a marginal effect on wheat growth and production on the southern aspect and at 12.0 m distance from the tree base. Similarly, the effect was highly significant (p < 0.01) at 3.0 m distance from the tree base and also on the northern aspect of the tree. However, this effect varied with locality to locality. The highest mean wheat production was 84.03 ± 6.00 g m⁻² at Shahab-Khel. The wheat production was > 31% and 54% at 12.0 m distance from tree base on southern aspect compared to 3.0 m distance and northern aspect, respectively. Based on these findings it is concluded that effect of forest tree on wheat production can further be minimized by sowing wheat crop at a distance ≥ 12 m from tree base and also on lopping of the tree in winter to reduce shade effect northern aspect.

Principles Of Nutritional Assessment

Article

Mar 2005

Rosalind S Gibson

This is a comprehensive text on the methods—dietary, anthropometric, laboratory and clinical—of assessing the nutritional status of populations and of individuals in the hospital or the community. The second edition incorporates recent data from national nutritional surveys in the US and Europe; the flood of new information about iron, vitamin A and iodine; the role of folate in preventing neural tube defects; the use of HPLC techniques and enzyme assays; improvements in data handling; and many other developments since 1990.

The importance of different forest management systems for people’s dietary quality in Tanzania

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