What Food is Produced from Forests
One of the main food products exported from forests is (sadly) palm oil from the Elaeis Guineensis palm as well as the edible hearts of the palm. As well as palm oil, many varieties of fruits, seeds, grains, and a wide range of game are exported from the world's forests by the truckload. Forests are an easily farmed resource as they do not usually use pesticides, they do not need watering or fertilizing, the only necessary thing to do is to harvest. How Forests Benefit Food Security Tree foods are often rich in vitamins, proteins, and other nutrients and are associated with more diverse diets. For example, the iron content of dried seeds of the African locust bean and raw cashew nut are comparable with, or even higher than that of chicken meat. Trees in home gardens, widespread in Africa and Asia, increase fruit and vegetable consumption. Wild meat, fish, and insects are also important forest food sources. Insects are an especially cheap, abundant source of protein and fat. Caterpillars are great for vitamins and minerals. Particularly in South-East Asia, many forests and agroforests (tree-based farms) are managed by local communities specifically to enhance edible insect supply, such as the management of sago palms in Papua New Guinea and eastern Indonesia to support grub production. Forests are also essential for firewood and charcoal. In developing countries, 2.4 billion people still use wood-fuel for cooking and heating. In India and Nepal, even better-off rural households depend on it. The volatile and often high prices for other energy sources suggest this situation is unlikely to change for some time. Access to cooking fuel provides people with more flexibility in what they can eat, including more nutritious foods that require more energy to cook. Trees offer a multitude of ecological services. For instance, they support bees and other pollinators, which are essential for crop production including on farmland. They also provide animal fodder that enables communities to produce meat and milk, and protect streams and watersheds as habitat for fish. Disadvantages of Forest Foods There is indisputable evidence that forests and trees play an important role in food production and nutrition, but agriculture also remains one of the key drivers of deforestation. Forest Farming is not managed in a way that is best for the ecosystems forests contain, causing many animals to be hurt or stripped of their habitats. Machines used to help with harvesting can have an effect on the pollution levels in the ecosystem, and the deforestation has a larger effect on the environment than just the loss of habitat, the loss of trees has a ripple effect on the rest of the area concerning things like climate, humidity levels etc. The Solution A total of 805 million people are undernourished worldwide, and malnutrition affects nearly every country on the planet. As population estimates for 2050 reach over 9 billion, concerns about food security and nutrition have been dominating academic and policy debates. In 2012, at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development: (Rio+20), the UN Secretary General proposed an ambitious goal to eliminate global hunger by 2025 – the so-called “Zero Hunger Challenge”. There is extensive evidence that suggests that forests can play a huge role in agricultural production. They can provide better and more nutritionally-balanced diets, woodfuel for cooking, greater control over food consumption choices - particularly during lean seasons, and can deliver a broad set of ecosystem services which enhance and support crop production. However the deforestation issues the worlds forests are facing puts a strain on the goal to use forests to their highest capacity. The effort across the world to efficiently use the diverse landscapes within the forest biome is fragmented cross many organisations. This makes it overlapping and complex which in turn makes it very difficult to maintain. Food Security and Nutrition is not accurately represented in forest agriculture, which is the main problem in the misuse of forest food. The UN needs to bring organisations together to manage the production and distribution of forest foods in order to achieve the Zero Hunger Challenge. |