The importance of forests in supporting the well-being of poor rural communities in developing countries cannot be overstated, not only for improving food security but also for biodiversity conservation.
A study recently published in Food Security journal examined whether there is a relationship between forest cover and diet quality at the household level in rural southern Malawi. The study titled The relationship between forest cover and diet quality: a case study of rural southern Malawi compared nutrition data for 2084 households, collected as part of the 2010/11 Third Integrated Household Survey for Malawi (IHS3), with a satellite-based land-cover map of Malawi.
The study found that in rural southern Malawi, households located in areas with a high percentage of forest cover had significantly higher vitamin A adequacy compared to households in less forested areas due to consumption of wild plant foods. The authors also found that forest cover was not associated with any other indicators of diet quality, but a number of social and demographic factors were significant determinants, including education, household size, and market access. The authors suggest that further investigation of these associations is imperative at a time when forests are being cleared at an alarming rate to make way for agricultural production.
Authors: Charlotte Hall1, Jennie Macdiarmid2, Robin Matthews3, Pete Smith4, Steve Hubbard1, and Terry Dawson5, May 2019.
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1 School of Social Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
2 The Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
3 James Hutton Institute, Scotland, UK
4 Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
5 Department of Geography, King’s College, London, UK
