Diverse Tropical Trees Can Potentially Transform Worldwide Malnutrition and Global Warming

In recent years due to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), researchers have been studying sustainable diets. Researchers propose one solution that can battle both global warming and worldwide health problems: tropical trees.

International researchers recently published their findings in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature describing the relationship between the global food system and the environment. As a result, food systems lack sufficient supplies of fresh fruits and vegetables worldwide while people opt for unhealthier alternatives such as fast food or preserved food.

It will take years until agricultural and diet trends can dramatically change and meet the 2030 SDGs. However, encouraging the growth and consumption of tropical fruit and nut trees are both sustainable and attainable.

Tropical Trees

Healthy tropical trees include mangoes, avocadoes, and other nutritious fruits, nuts, leaves, and seeds comprised of nearly 60,000 species. Moreover, "increased use of tree diversity can make a significant contribution to human nutrition," wrote the authors.

Merel Jansen of ETH Zurich said, "Planting the right type of trees in the right place can provide nutritious foods to improve diets sustainably while providing other valuable ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration." Rural societies will also benefit from the low-cost food source while improving their nutrition, livelihood, and food security.

Despite the thousands of edible plants, nearly 50% of calories consumed come from maize, rice, sugarcane, and wheat. Wide consumption of nutrient-poor foods has resulted in mass malnutrition, which affects nearly two billion of the world's population.

Furthermore, cultivating these four crops have resulted in biodiversity loss and global warming. Countless native trees are cleared for crop plantations or grazing land.

Increasing the diversity and knowledge of tropical trees species "offers an excellent nature-based solution to match the rising global demand for diversified, healthy and sustainable diets, and to re-valuate native tree species and local farming practices," said Chris Kettle from ETH Zurich. Smallholder farmers provide a large percentage of the world's food but can potentially transform international food systems with the right resources such as incentives, investments, and government policies.

Importance of Biodiversity

Women and other marginalized groups will also benefit from tropical trees because the fresh produce are not planted individually but grow simultaneously. Farmers can then provide more jobs for locals while diversifying their source of income.

However, developing tropical tree food systems would have to be carefully planned due to potential downsides. For example, increased demand for cacao agriculture in West Africa has resulted in deforestation, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and increased carbon emissions. Avocados from Mexico earn a larger profit from exports but are targeted by organized crime.

Combining interventions from producers to consumers is needed so that tropical tree food systems are both diverse and sustainable. It is critical to avoid "large-scale deforestation or other unwanted side effects," said Jansen. In conclusion, "addressing technical, financial, political and consumer behavior barriers," wrote the authors, can "catalyze a transition towards more sustainable global food systems."

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