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Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge for policy
Supporting policy with scientific evidence

We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.

  • Publication | 2021
A method to study complex agroforestry landscapes: illustration in Madagascar
Global Food and Nutrition Security

Tropical forested landscapes have experienced major changes over the last century, some of them driven by the transformation of farming systems in response to global change. Population growth and the development of a global market economy, in particular, led to the expansion of cash crops in the tropics, raising concerns about disruption of ecosystems, degradation of natural resources and impacts on rural populations’ livelihoods. Cash crop expansion led to massive deforestation in some regions, leading to a loss of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services previously provided by complex forest ecosystems (Barrios et al., 2018). However, tree plantations and tropical smallholder agriculture are also recognised as ways of reframing the food-biodiversity challenge (Leakey, 2020). Some of these agro-ecological systems, such as agroforestry, present features conferring both social and ecological benefits, such as providing diversity of food and other crops, strengthening humanenvironment connections and traditional values, and likely ensuring ecological sustainability. These features suggest they can be seen as Win (food)-Win (environment) systems (Fischer et al., 2017).