Forests Help Feed Billions: Why Are Food Policies Overlooking Them?

A report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Landscape Alliance urges countries to integrate forests into food-security and nutrition policies. It highlights a gap between forests’ contribution to diets, livelihoods and agricultural production and their recognition in national statistics, while raising questions about sustainable use and resource rights.

Forests feed people long before their value appears in a national account. A global report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Landscape Alliance argues that governments are overlooking a substantial part of the food economy by failing to account adequately for the contribution of forests to nutrition, household incomes and agricultural production.

The report, Forests for food: Nourishing people, sustaining the planet, calls for forests to be integrated into agrifood policies. Its central challenge is practical: decisions about producing more food need to account for the food, purchasing power and productive resources that can disappear when forests are cleared or degraded.

Food Policy Has an Accounting Problem

According to the report, more than 5 billion people depend to some extent on forests for their livelihoods. Dependence varies widely, from gathering food for household consumption to earning income from forest products. The figure captures a broad relationship with forests; it does not mean that all these people depend on wild foods for their daily meals.

Forest foods such as fruit, nuts, mushrooms and edible plants can diversify diets, while forest-related earnings help households buy food. Woodfuel supports cooking, and forests protect soils, regulate water and provide habitat for pollinators. These contributions connect forest management to several dimensions of food security: whether food exists, whether people can afford it and whether they can prepare and consume it.

National accounting struggles to capture this range of benefits. The report says statistics often prioritize marketed production, leaving household consumption and informal trade underrepresented. Incomplete nutritional data and inconsistent classifications further complicate comparisons. A food gathered and eaten without a recorded transaction can have considerable household value while remaining largely invisible in economic statistics.

The resulting policy problem is an uneven comparison. Agricultural production following land conversion may be easier to measure than the foods, informal earnings and ecological services previously supplied by the forest. Recognizing those benefits would give governments a fuller basis for land-use decisions, although measurement alone cannot settle competing claims over land or determine whose interests should prevail.

More Farmland Can Carry a Food Cost

The report places continued deforestation alongside a longer-term decline in net forest loss. An improvement in the global net balance does not mean forest clearance has stopped. Nor does a headline measure of forest area, by itself, describe the consequences for particular communities, food resources or agricultural landscapes.

The report records the following figures:

• 10.9 million hectares: average annual deforestation during 2015–2025.
• 4.12 million hectares: average annual net forest loss during the same period.
• 10.7 million hectares: average annual net forest loss during 1990–2000.

According to the report, deforestation and degradation can reduce biodiversity, weaken agricultural productivity and diminish access to nutritious food. Forests also provide food and income during shortages or economic downturns. Losing those resources can therefore affect both everyday livelihoods and the options households have when other sources of food or earnings come under pressure.

The central trade-off is not captured by asking only how much additional farmland conversion would create. A fuller assessment also asks what existing food sources and productive functions would be lost, who would absorb those losses and whether alternatives are accessible. Short-term returns and longer-term food security may point towards different choices, particularly where forest benefits are poorly recorded.

Agroforestry, which integrates trees into agricultural systems, is among the approaches the report recommends. Its emphasis is on managing agriculture and forests together, with policies tailored to local pressures. Where large-scale agriculture drives clearing, the report points to conversion controls and tenure safeguards; where subsistence farming is the driver, it emphasizes improved practices and broader rural development.

The Benefits Depend on Who Holds the Rights

Recognition of forests' food value raises a distributional question: who can continue to use them? Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities have particularly direct interests because forests support diets, livelihoods and cultural life. The report places secure tenure, the rights governing land and resource use, alongside participation as a foundation for sustainable management.

Better recognition could strengthen communities' position in decisions about forests, but that outcome depends on policy design. Valuing a resource does not automatically secure access for the people who rely on it. The report's emphasis on equitable resource rights, women's participation and youth engagement makes benefit-sharing a central implementation issue, rather than an assumed consequence of investment.

Commercial opportunities introduce another tension. Investment in processing and distribution could support forest-related livelihoods, yet increased demand can also intensify extraction. The report describes unsustainable hunting in parts of Asia associated with urban demand, easier access to forests and advances in hunting equipment. A larger market is therefore not sufficient evidence of a more secure food system.

Governments face the challenge of supporting livelihoods while maintaining the resources on which those livelihoods depend. Harvesting rules, community participation and safeguards need to work together. Restrictions that overlook household dependence could create hardship, while commercial expansion without sustainable management could erode the food and income benefits it is intended to develop.

The Real Test Is in Budgets and Diets

The policy agenda builds on voluntary recommendations adopted by the Committee on World Food Security in 2017. The report examines experience in China, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Türkiye and Uruguay, and proposes action across policy, management, information and governance. Its recommendations connect forest protection with nutrition planning, investment and clearer land rights.

Implementation would require ministries responsible for agriculture, forestry, land and nutrition to align objectives and spending. Better household surveys could reveal overlooked consumption and income, while more consistent classifications could improve comparisons. The report acknowledges substantial data gaps, so stronger measurement is needed both to guide policy and to judge whether interventions deliver their intended benefits.

The most revealing outcomes will be changes in diets, livelihoods, access rights and forest condition considered together. Higher sales alone would not establish better nutrition, just as a new strategy would not demonstrate effective implementation. The report's challenge to governments is to recognize forests as part of food provision, and then make that recognition tangible for the people who depend on them.