SFM and food security
Food security is the state in which everyone has access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for an active and healthy life. It includes the availability, accessibility and utilization of food, along with stability over time. SFM plays a vital role in achieving food security and nutrition because the health of forests directly affects these aspects.
Forests act as essential "safety nets" for rural communities, providing food, including fruits, leaves, mushrooms, tubers and wildlife. They also offer medicinal products. Additionally, forests contribute indirectly to food security by supplying wood for cooking and fodder for livestock. Access to woodfuel ensures proper cooking of foods and sterilization of water, thus preventing food-borne illnesses. As well, communities can generate income from forests through the sale of wood and non-wood forest products (NWFPs), enabling them to purchase food.
Unfortunately, these contributions of forests to food security are often overlooked in national food security strategies. SFM strategies should prioritize food security and nutrition, especially for vulnerable forest-dependent communities. Maintenance of forests and their ecosystem services is integral to sustainable food systems, and optimizing the role of forests and trees in food security should be a key objective of SFM.
Forests also provide critical ecosystem services that support agriculture and food production, such as water regulation, soil protection, pest control and pollination. Pollinators, in particular, significantly enhance crop productivity, and proximity to forests is beneficial for crop revenue. Therefore, forests are essential for both food security and sustainable agriculture.
