Forests, farming and food | CIFOR Forests News
▻https://forestsnews.cifor.org/51201/forests-farming-and-food?fnl=en
At 2,000 meters above sea level, the climate is temperate, soils are fertile, and unlike many parts of the country, there’s plenty of space for people to grow the crops they need to feed their families and make a living.
“From an agricultural point of view, you would say that this is a very blessed area,” says agronomist Frédéric Baudron, one of the lead scientists in a new study on forests and dietary diversity from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
But each time Amina weans a child, around the age of two, the child’s hair begins to turn yellow and fall out — signs of acute malnutrition. “It’s quite shocking to see such things,” says Baudron. “You feel like, wow, this place should not be experiencing this kind of problem.”
So what’s going on? Food security is high here. Most people are getting all the calories they need from the wheat and maize that grow easily and abundantly in the region. But many suffer from the “hidden hunger” of vitamin and mineral deficiency, which is estimated to affect around two billion people worldwide.
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How is this happening? Baudron says the forest is “acting as a site of nutrient accumulation, and then livestock vector these nutrients from the forest to the farms through manure,” increasing the fertility of these farms and allowing the production of a range of crops, including nutrient-dense ones.
As he explains, the forest provides a ready supply of fodder for livestock, allowing people living close by to keep bigger herds producing more manure; and the availability of firewood also means they are less likely to burn their stock’s manure as fuel.
So, people who live closer to the forest have more nutrient-rich manure available to use in their farm, and tend to concentrate it in home gardens, where they grow a wide range of foods, creating “real hotspots of dietary diversity,” says Baudron. They also have access to more animal products such as milk, eggs and meat from the larger herds they are able to maintain.
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