Farm forests, biomass poverty and chronic seasonal hunger.

Abstract

Seasonal hunger persists as the most common food insecurity experience for millions of small dryland farmers. This study tests the inter-relationships among food insecurity, farm forests and biomass poverty using a longitudinal data set from the Amahara region of Ethiopia. These data form part of the Ethiopia Socio-economic Survey data that collected panel data over three survey rounds from 640 households. The unique population representative data set includes for the first time includes socio-economic, wellbeing micro-landuse measures including farm forests. Hierarchical mixed effect regression models assessed the relationship between biomass poverty and food insecurity as well as the conditional effects of biomass poverty among the poorest farmers and women headed households. During the three waves over a six-year study period, farmers reported increased stress from smaller land holdings, higher prices and climate related shocks. During the same period, a clear trend towards spontaneous dispersed afforestation is observed both by researchers and space-based satellite remote sensing. Dedicating approximately 10% of farm area to forest reduces Months of Food Insecurity by half. Greatest reductions in food insecurity from farm forests are reported by female headed, ultra-poor, and crop residue-burning households. Biomass poverty may therefore be a primary constraint to resilient food security on these farms. This investigation provides novel representative quantitative evidence of induced intensification with important implications of for nature-based solutions for healthy and resilient people and planet.