Associating dietary quality and forest cover in India

With the global population expected to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, there is growing concern for how increasing demands for high-quality, sustainable diets will be met. Whilst food production and environmental conservation are often viewed as competing land uses, a growing body of literature supports the importance of forests in providing food and nutritional security. This study used data from India's National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) on food consumption and nutritional status in infants and young children aged 6–59 months and tree cover data to examine the statistical associations between tree coverage and indicators of nutritional health in India – a country home to >200 million of the world's undernourished, a rising double burden of malnutrition, and with vast forest and tree cover. In analyses conducted, tree cover was positively associated with higher dietary diversity in infants and young children aged 6–23 months, and with reduced likelihood of stunting and wasting in children aged under 5 yrs. in areas with the highest tree coverages, after controlling for other possible variables. These relationships do not always hold at regional level; further work is needed to explore the mechanisms underlying the relationships examined within given contexts. Overall, these findings indicate the potential for forests and trees to contribute to quality diets in India. In emphasising the potential complementarity between environmental conservation and food provisioning, this work has important implications for food security and environmental policy.