Food and Forests in Africa

  • What interventions can help governments deliver on both food production and forest conservation targets, while providing more equitable distribution of the benefits?

Food demand in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to triple by 2050. As countries in this region attempt to meet this growing demand, they are placed in a challenging position in regards to sustainable development. Agricultural conversion is the primary driver of deforestation, meaning that sub-Saharan African countries face conflicting commitments to UN Sustainable Development Goals 2 (end hunger) and 15 (protect terrestrial ecosystems).

 

OUR APPROACH: The team aims to address agricultural expansion as a driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss in sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on governance and political economy as drivers. This group is combining spatial and political economy analyses to better reconcile these competing goals. Their work also includes working in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania and building on previous efforts by the International Institute for Environment and Development.

Team Status:

  • Completed

Goals

Results

  • Improve cohesion between sectoral policies and strategies for food production and forest conservation
  • Prompt national civil society organizations to inform policy, strategies and practice around the competition between food production and forest conservation
  • Cause key regional and global multilateral agencies to support agriculture, forest conservation and associated land use planning, and to better understand the competition between food production and forest conservation in order to better manage related risks and tradeoffs

Managing Trade-Offs

Agricultural expansion is the greatest driver of biodiversity loss. Managing trade-offs between conserving nature and increasing agricultural production is essential in Africa. Policy makers are more valuable to instituting change than improved technology. It is important to recognize the trade-offs between agricultural production and nature conservation where these can be openly discussed and negotiated.

Management Tools 

A combination of trade-off analysis methods is increasingly common. The most valuable analysis of conservation and agriculture include stakeholder involvement. Knowledge coproduction processes can be a strategy for developing sensitivity to trade-offs and learning how to put these insights into practice.

Efforts to Reduce Social and Environmental Trade-offs 

Current agricultural and forest policies are geared towards economic gain, with little consideration for biodiversity conservation. Agricultural policies focus on productivity increase through agricultural modernization and value-chain development. Better trade-off management will prevent the loss of remaining forests and woodlands outside of enforced protected areas.

Key Products

Creating enabling conditions for managing trade-offs between food production and forest conservation in Africa: Case studies from Ethiopia and Zambia

Conservation versus food production in Africa: better managing trade-offs (Briefing)

Agriculture, nature conservation or both? Managing trade-offs and synergies in sub-Saharan Africa

Food and forests: understanding agriculture and conservation trade-offs in Ethiopia (Briefing)

See More Outcomes

Teams

Leaders

Phil Franks

  • International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Members

Albert Katako

  • Civic Response

Yigremachew Seyoum

  • UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Ethiopia

Florence Agyei

  • Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana

Charles Meshack

  • Tanzania Forest Conservation Group

Jacob Mwitwa

  • Copperbelt University

Rachel Carmenta

  • University of Cambridge

Unai Pasual

  • Foundation for Science, Basque Centre for Climate Change

Ezra Berkhout

  • Netherlands Environmental Agency

Tim Thomas

  • International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Tagel Gebrehiwot

  • Ethiopian Development Research Institute

Peter Minang

  • World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)

Monica Zurek

  • University of Oxford

Marieke Sassen

  • Wageningen University; World Conservation Monitoring Centre

Lucy Magembe

  • The Nature Conservancy

Joseph Tobias

  • Imperial College

Hambulo Ngoma

  • Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute

Habte Kassa

  • Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

Dora Neina

  • University of Ghana

Casey Ryan

  • University of Edinburgh

Bhaskar Vira

  • University of Cambridge

Barbara Adolph

  • International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Anne Trainor

  • Yale University; The Nature Conservancy

Advisors

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