1. Tree Cover and Nutrition in Indonesia
Amy Ickowitz, CIFOR
Presentation for World Congress on Agroforestry
New Delhi, February 11, 2014

2. • Prevalence of stunting in children under 5:
• 25.2% and 39.2% in urban and rural areas
• 29% of Indonesian households have a caloric intake
below RDA
• Poor dietary quality
• About 40% of Indonesians suffer from one or more
micronutrient deficiencies , the most common :
• iron, vitamin A, zinc and iodine
• The average Indonesian consumes 102 kg of rice
per year with very low quantities of vegetables,
fruits and animal source foods (BPS 2008)
Food Security and Nutrition in
Indonesia

3. • This study (Ickowitz, Rowland, Powell, and
Sunderland) explores whether trees and forests
contribute to better nutrition in Indonesia
• There is much rhetoric on forests vs. food security
• The kind of food security often referenced in these kinds
of arguments is calories
• But when we broaden the focus to include dietary quality,
the importance of micronutrient-rich foods becomes
apparent
• If we focus on consumption of fruits, vegetables, and
animal source foods, it is possible that forests actually
make a contribution to food security
Forests, Trees, and Nutrition

4. Why might forests and tree-filled landscapes be
important for dietary quality?
 Collection of nutritious NTFPs
 Farming mosaics may promote
more diverse diets
 Agro-forestry and fruit production
 Ecosystem services of forests for
agriculture
 Availability of fuel wood
 May provide ‘back up’ foods for
lean season

5.  Several papers discuss some of these plausible links (Colfer et al.,
2005; Vinceti et al., 2008; Arnold et al., 2011), but little empirical
evidence
 Johnson et al. (2013) finds that net forest loss associated with
less dietary diversity in Malawi
 Recent paper by CIFOR food security team finds that there is a
positive relationship between tree cover and child dietary
diversity in a sample of 21 countries in Africa
Is there evidence?

6. • Children living near forests in Indonesia have better
quality diets than children living in other rural areas
because
• They have access to micronutrient-rich forest
foods (wild fruits, vegetables, bushmeat)
• More likely to practice shifting cultivation and/or
agroforestry which more likely to offer greater
variety of foods
Hypothesis

7. • Also likely to be income poor and have less market
access
• So possible that others can afford to buy more,
nutritious foods in markets
• Are micronutrient-rich foods readily available in
rural markets?
• Can the relatively poor afford them?
• Do they choose to buy them?
But…

8. We merge
• Indonesian Demographic Health Survey (DHS) data from
2003
• Frequency child ate from various food groups in the last 7
days
with
• GLCF MODIS data (250 m resolution) on percentage tree
cover
• Along with several other variables from various data sets
• We run several regressions to see if there is a statistically
significant relationship between frequency of consumption of
various foods and tree cover
Testing the hypothesis

9. • Number of times in the last 7
days child (between 1 and r5
years old) ate:
• Vitamin A rich fruits
• Vitamin A rich vegetables
• Green leafy vegetables
• Animal Source Foods
• Legumes
• Dairy
• Grains
• We restrict sample to rural areas and
only one observation per mother
Dependent Variables

10. Independent Variables
% Tree Cover
Child characteristics
 Age
 Age squared
 Currently breastfeeding
 sex
Household Characteristics
 Wealth index
 Mother’s education
 Father’s education
 Muslim
Community Characteristics
 % 5km band overlapping with palm oil
concession
 Distance to coast
 Distance to city
 Aridity
 Elevation
25 Regional Dummies

11. Sample: about 3000 children between ages 13 and
59 months in 25 provinces across Indonesia

12. Main Result
There is a statistically
significant positive
relationship between
% tree cover and
frequency of
consumption of:
• Vitamin-A rich fruits
• Animal Source Foods

13.  There is a statistically significant positive relationship
between the % of a village’s area that overlapped with an
oil palm concession and the frequency of consumption of
 Dairy
 Legumes
 Vitamin-A rich vegetables
Another interesting result

14. • Vitamin-A rich fruits
• Wild forest or agro-forest?
• Animal Source Foods
• Bushmeat or fish
• Legumes
• Tofu and tempeh
• Dairy
• Powdered and condensed milk
Conjectures and unanswered questions

15.  We have found preliminary support for the hypothesis
that forests are important for nutrition in Indonesia
 We need more detailed and fine-grained data to help
us understand how and why children in areas with
more tree cover in Indonesia consume fruits and
animal source foods more frequently
 We also found preliminary evidence that oil palm
concessions are associated with more frequency of
consumption of other foods
 Are there trade-offs?
 If so, what do these mean for dietary quality?
 What do these mean for discussions of forests and
foods security?
Conclusions

16. THINKING beyond the canopy
Thank you!