More trees on farms can reduce hunger and restore degraded land, UN says

With about 75 percent of the world's poor - some 1.2 billion people - living in rural areas, growing trees on farms can help alleviate poverty by providing income and food as well as restore degraded land, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

"Smallholder farmers are under increasing threat of food insecurity due to land degradation caused by extreme weather conditions, growing population pressure and inappropriate farming systems," Assistant Director-General of the FAO Forestry Department Hosny El Lakany said in a message to participants at the week-long First World Congress of Agroforestry being held in Orlando, Florida.

But this can be tackled by growing trees on farms, he added, helping the rural poor to improve soil fertility and providing them with fruits, leaves, nuts and spices that are important components of their diet, particularly in times of food shortages.

Trees, which also provide wood products, medicine and forage, are an important source of income and energy for the rural poor, with more than 2 billion people using wood as fuel, FAO said. Diversifying income-generation from natural resources is key to the sustainability of small farms.

By addressing food security, household nutrition and income generation, FAO expects to help farmers reduce the need to open new forests and woodlands for cultivation, thus allowing the rehabilitation of degraded and deforested areas.

In the last two decades, the need to grow more food and improve living conditions has forced small farmers, often at risk of hunger, to strive for maximum production from the fragile ecosystems. This has resulted in widespread land degradation and soil fertility decline, exacerbating poverty and sometimes generating conflicts over scarce resources. More than 60 percent of degraded land is in Asia and Africa.

FAO has been assisting countries to improve the livelihoods of the rural poor by designing policies and developing field projects on agroforestry. These include a two-year community based project in northern Namibia that has enabled farmers to select, plant and manage fruit trees, and a plan in Viet Nam to diversify agricultural output by planting trees on farms.