This paper was originally published in ScienceAdvances.
“Abstract: Micronutrient deficiency affects about a third of the world’s population. Children in developing countries are particularly vulnerable. Consequences include impaired cognitive and physical development and increased childhood morbidity and mortality. Recent studies suggest that forests help alleviate micronutrient deficiency by increasing dietary diversity.
However, evidence is mostly based on weakly designed local case studies of limited relevance to global policies. Furthermore, impacts of forests on diet vary among communities, and understanding this variation can help target actions to enhance impact. We compile data on children’s diets in over 43,000 households across 27 developing countries to examine the impacts of forests on dietary diversity. We use empirical designs that are attentive to assumptions necessary for causal interpretations and that adequately account for confounding factors that could mask or mimic the impact.
We find that high exposure to forests causes children to have at least 25% greater dietary diversity compared to lack of exposure, a result comparable to the impacts of some nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs. A closer look at a subset of African countries indicates that impacts are generally higher for less developed communities, but highest with certain access to markets, roads, and education. Our results also indicate that forests could help reduce vitamin A and iron deficiencies. Our study establishes the causal relationship between forests and diet and thus strengthens the evidence for integrating forest conservation and management into nutrition interventions. Our results also suggest that providing households some access to capital can increase the impact of forest-related interventions on nutrition.
Introduction
Deficiencies in micronutrients, such as vitamins and minerals, are one of the world’s major nutritional challenges, affecting over 2 billion people worldwide (1). Often symptomless, and thus unnoticed, they nevertheless have important health consequences such as reduced cognitive and physical development, capacity and productivity, and increased childhood morbidity and mortality. Children are particularly vulnerable, and micronutrient deficiency is more prevalent in developing countries (2). Interventions to tackle the problem range from micronutrient supplementation to agricultural programs aimed at combating lack of food and dietary diversity (2). The potential role of forests in diversifying diet has led to recent calls for the reassessment of forest conservation and management in nutrition policies and for making forest-related interventions more nutrition-sensitive (3–5).
Forests affect dietary diversity through diverse pathways (Fig. 1). Forest food products, including diverse animal, plant, and mushroom species, are commonly collected by rural forest people in developing countries (5). While forest foods do not universally form a substantial part of a diet, they supply essential micronutrients and contribute significantly to nutrition in some contexts (6). For example, in rural forest-dependent households in Cameroon, forest foods contribute 93% of women’s vitamin A intake, 100% for sodium, 85% for iron, 88% for zinc, and 89% for calcium (7). Forests shelter pollinators upon which over 70% of leading global crops depend, representing 35% of the food supply (8). Pollination is crucial for the production of fruits and vegetables that are sources of essential micronutrients (9) and improve crop quality and quantity. For example, an experiment by Klatt et al. (10) shows that bee-pollinated strawberries have improved quality and quantity compared to wind-pollinated and self-pollinated strawberries. Access to forest products (timber and nontimber) can affect dietary diversity through increased income and disposable time. A study covering 24 developing countries found that, on average, forest products contribute 22% of total income (subsistence and cash) of rural forest households (11). Part of the forest income is sold for cash (11), which can be used to buy foods or inputs for agricultural production. Proximity to forest products (for example, firewood) can also affect the time women allocate to nutrition-related activities, such as food preparation or agricultural production (12). In Nepal, deforestation was associated with an average increase of 1.13 hours in the time women daily spent to collect fuelwood, leaf fodder, and grass for livestock feed (13). Finally, there are also suggestions that agricultural techniques in forested areas often involve diverse crops that may be conducive to a more diverse diet (14)…”
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