Rebuilding natural, social and human capital in tropical farming systems

Written by Roger Leakey

Vice President of the International Tree Foundation

With our world torn by climate change, deforestation, land degradation, hunger, malnutrition, poverty, loss of wildlife habitat, zoonotic pandemics, illegal migration and social injustice, the challenge facing global society is to find practical and pragmatic ways to ‘reboot our planet’. Many of today’s big problems can be traced back to the breakdown of natural capital – especially forests and woodlands, but also soils, water and wildlife. This is especially true of farming systems in the tropics where natural capital is severely degraded.??

We are all aware that wildlife habitat has been eroded by deforestation and land degradation led by the growth of the human population which has put increasing pressure on forests and woodlands. Furthermore, in the tropics, conventional approaches to agriculture have led to severely degraded land and ongoing poverty. This traps small-scale subsistence farmers in crop production with yields that are 10-15% of the potential yield of modern crops (i) - described as ‘land failing’.

Land failing also leads to human-wildlife conflicts in the national parks and other protected areas which have typically been created independent from farming. Thus, failing agriculture also threatens biodiversity and wildlife habitats.?

The challenge we now face is how to find an acceptable solution that addresses the needs of the farmers, wildlife and the planet? I believe that to do this we need to find appropriate and practical ways to address land failing. This means we must hugely increase actual crop yields and thus close what is known as the Yield Gaps - the difference between actual crop yield and the potential yield of existing crop varieties.? This means increasing actual crop yields by 300-500%. This sounds impossible when severely poor farmers do not have access to the conventional farm inputs.??

However, we now have almost zero-cost and tree-based sustainable alternatives that both increase crop yield and support farming communities by increasing food production and generating income from less land.??

How does this work???

Firstly, nitrogen-fixing leguminous shrubs can initiate the restoration of soil fertility and health – the first of three steps to closing the yield gaps (ii). The second step achieves what African farmers told us they would like from agriculture - to be able to grow the indigenous trees that produced traditionally important foods and medicines locally before deforestation. Achieving these ambitions with the ‘Trees of life’ is the basis of both the second and third steps.??

It’s great that there are now a series of global initiatives in a wide range of climate-soil-social circumstances around the world making this a reality (iii). In addition to producing useful and marketable everyday products for local people, these new perennial crops diversify and enrich farming systems. This further rebuilds agroecosystems and natural capital, while providing habitat for about 70% of forest species, as well as biomass for carbon storage.?

Critically, the products from these underutilized and little-known tree species incentivise farmers to cultivate them. Importantly, they have almost infinite untapped potential to give rise to novel and innovative local business opportunities and indeed even new industries.?

So, the good news is we do now have ways to address the failures of agriculture and recreate the social and economic benefits of farming, while also being wildlife-friendly and climate-friendly (iv). This has been described as ‘Land Maxing’ (v).????

Putting all this together, I believe we now have the understanding, knowledge, skills, techniques, and strategies to address the ‘big picture’ issues facing society through an ecologically based intensification of agriculture. The good news, I believe, is that this should greatly enhance the habitat for wildlife. However, as ecologists know, scale is a necessity to create and protect fully functional ecosystems so that all trophic levels are in balance. This means that healthy populations of the top predators and herbivores must be in balance with their environment.??

To conclude, incorporating the traditionally important ‘Trees of life’ into tropical farming systems has emerged as the keystone to rebuilding the natural, social and human capital required for a sustainable planet. This is because their products and critical ecological and social services provide the very many day-to-day needs of both local people and wildlife.?

Footnotes:?

(i) Addressing the causes of land degradation, food / nutritional insecurity and poverty: a new approach to agricultural intensification in the tropics and sub-tropics. In: Wake Up Before it is too Late: Make Agriculture Truly Sustainable Now for Food Security in a Changing Climate, 192-198, UNCTAD Trade and Environment Review 2013, U. Hoffman (ed.), UN Publications, Geneva, Switzerland.?

(ii) Converting ‘trade-offs’ to ‘trade-ons’ for greatly enhanced food security in Africa: multiple environmental, economic and social benefits from ‘socially modified crops. Food Security 10: 505-524. DOI 10.1007/s12571-018-0796-1??????

(iii) The future of food: domestication and commercialization of indigenous food crops in Africa over the third decade (2012-2021), Sustainability 14:2355.? https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042355.?

(iv) Living with the Trees of Life (2nd Edition) – A Practical Guide to Rebooting the Planet through Tropical Agriculture and Putting Farmers First, 2024, CABI, Wallingford, UK, 256 p. (https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/book/10.1079/9781800625006.0000).?

(v) A re-boot of tropical agriculture benefits food production, rural economies, health, social justice and the environment. Nature Food 1: 260-265.? DOI: 10.1038/s43016-020-0076-z?