Opinion Piece: Fight climate change and food insecurity with trees!

The number of undernourished people in the world is growing. Climate change and extreme weather is reducing yields for small-holder farmers resulting in food insecurity. A growing population and an increasing demand for agricultural commodities is driving deforestation in tropical regions, resulting in a losses of biodiversity.

Time is running out for the global community to take on these complex and pressing challenges. Actions are needed today that improve the global food security. Actions that are also reducing the vulnerability of small scale food producers, increasing biodiversity and decreasing the emissions of greenhouse gases.

The full opinion piece can be read in Forum för Utvecklingsfrågor (FUF).

In the new report Achieving the Global Goals through Agroforestry Agroforestry Network concludes that agroforestry can help to reach 9 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The report is based on a thorough scientific review of agroforestry. But even though the benefits of agroforestry are well demonstrated and documented, agroforestry is not properly acknowledged and funded in Swedish foreign aid.

In an opinion piece published in FuF, the Agroforestry Network therefore encourages the Swedish parliament and the government to be to:

• Increase funding for agroforestry projects;
• Acknowledge and highlight agroforestry in strategies for global development cooperation;
• Raise the awareness and knowledge about agroforestry by including successful projects in the Swedish reporting to e.g. the Sustainable Development Goals and support demand driven research in agroforestry.

The Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved by 2030. A part of the solution is to invest in well-demonstrated methods that are proven to be effective.

Benta Muga in Kenya is practicing agroforestry on her farm – planting trees together with crops. Photo: Amunga Eshuchi. Vi-skogen.