Trees Boost Farm Income and Produce Fruit After Other Crops Fail
- Mar 3, 2017
- 1 min read
Trees may be easy to spot on the plains of Africa, but they often are overlooked as a source of income for farmers. A University of Illinois study shows trees on farms may help reduce rural poverty and maintain biodiversity.
“Trees on farms in Africa often fall through the cracks — they’re not forests and they’re not agriculture,” said U of I’s Daniel Miller, who studies environmental politics and policy. “In our study, we found about one third of all rural farmers across five study countries have and grow trees on their farms. Among those farmers, trees on farms contribute 17 percent to their annual household income, so they’re very important for generating economic benefits for households.”
Miller’s study used satellite images showing forest cover and nationally representative household-level data gathered from in-person interviews in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
Trees can play an important role in both climate change adaptation and mitigation.
“Climate smart agriculture is a new buzzword,” Miller said. “The World Bank has committed to making their agricultural investments climate smart by 2019. Trees are climate smart because they aren’t as fragile as agricultural crops are to extreme shifts in climate.
“Oftentimes, trees can continue to produce when you might have a crop failure due to a drought. So trees may provide a food source like mangos or other fruit in times of difficulty.”
Ollivier Girard/CIFOR
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