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Article

Trees on farms improve dietary quality in rural Malawi

Details

Citation

Hall CM, Den Braber B, Vansant E, Oldekop JA, Das U, Fielding D, Kamoto JFM & Rasmussen LV (2025) Trees on farms improve dietary quality in rural Malawi. Conservation Letters, 18 (1), Art. No.: e13061. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13061

Abstract
Trees on farms not only provide agricultural and environmental benefits but can also contribute to food security. We use panel data covering a 10-year period from the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement ÍæÅ¼½ã½ã (LSMS) to examine the effects of trees on farms on people's dietary quality in rural Malawi. We found that having on-farm trees leads to higher and more diverse fruit and vegetable consumption. Specifically, households who had trees on their farm (or who acquired trees during the 10-year period) exhibited a 3% increase in vegetable consumption compared to households without trees. Moreover, for every additional tree species owned or acquired by a household during the study period, fruit consumption increased by 5%. These results demonstrate that trees on farms may play a role in meeting nutrition, conservation, and climate change mitigation goals, with important implications for sustainable development strategies in low- and middle-income countries.

Keywords
agroforestry; biodiversity conservation; dietary quality; nutrition; poverty alleviation; trees on farms

Journal
Conservation Letters: Volume 18, Issue 1

StatusPublished
Funders
Publication date online31/01/2025
Date accepted by journal23/09/2024
URL
PublisherWiley
eISSN1755-263X

People (1)

Dr Charlotte Hall

Dr Charlotte Hall

Lecturer in Environmental Geography, Biological and Environmental Sciences

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