Presented by Josh Van Vianen at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) in Mérida, Yucatán (Mexico) on July 11, 2017. This presentation was part of the Agrarian Change Project Symposium: The impacts of agrarian change on local communities: Sharing experience from the field. ------- Background: Changing demands for agricultural products driven by ongoing population growth and shifting socioeconomic demographics is leading to transitions in dietary patterns throughout the developing world. Global demand for agricultural products is expected to increase by 1% per year over the period of 2007-2050—equivalent to a 60% increase in production over the same period. Concurrently, a global nutrition transition is manifesting itself in the increased demand for certain agricultural commodities, in particular vegetable oils, refined carbohydrates and animal source foods. Smallholder family farms still dominate global agricultural systems, comprising 98% of all farms and covering 52% of agricultural land. Yet, these farms are increasingly becoming commercialized and transitioning away from diverse subsistence systems towards specialized market orientated operations leading to dramatic shifts in the scale and nature of agricultural landscapes. Methods: How these agricultural transitions affect the environment, ecosystem service provisioning, and the livelihoods, well-being and health of local populations is a key focus of this project. To answer these questions, we have applied a novel methodological approach as part of the Agrarian Change Project which aims to explore the nature of forest loss and landscape-scale agricultural transitions in tropical forested areas across seven countries. We examine how commodity-driven changes in agricultural landscapes manifest themselves as dietary transitions at the local scale which represents an often overlooked social dimension of tropical conservation. Results: Here we present evidence to support the notion that deforestation and agrarian intensification of landscapes can drive nutritional transitions at a local scale and that agricultural commercialization may improve food security, but its effects upon dietary diversity are yet to be fully understood. Discussion: Understanding the roles that forests play—beyond the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services—in the diversity of rural diets may provide conservationists with yet another tool to address issues surrounding land use change, rapid rural development and the associated environmental impacts.

1. Landscape complexity and dietary
diversity: Linking deforestation and
agrarian change to dietary transitions
Josh Van Vianen, Dominic Rowland & team
ATBC Merida
12th July 2017

2.  Agricultural expansion remains
major driver of deforestation
 Transformation of natural systems
has resulted in significant
environmental degradation
 But agricultural productivity depends
on functioning ecosystems
 Global food system is in crisis
(Global Nutrition Report 2016)
 Trade-off between biodiversity
conservation and agriculture
 Ca.60% of world’s food originates
from diverse small-holder farming
systems in complex landscapes
 Agro-ecological approaches being
advocated (e.g. IPBES 2016)
 Need strong evidence-based for
implementation
Context

3. Agrarian Change Project: Food Security
and Nutrition
 Why is food security and Nutrition important?
 What are the links between dietary diversity,
biodiversity land use and forests
 Correlations between forest cover and dietary
diversity (Johnson et al, Ickowitz et al 2014)
 What is driving the link between forests and
diets?
- Diverse forest-based agriculture?
(Ickowitz et. al 2016)
- Wild foods? (Rowland et al. 2017)
- Landscape and livelihood effects?
• Dietary quality and tree cover in Africa-
Ickowitz et al. 2014
• Forest foods and their contribution to food
security- Fungo et al. 2015
• Ecological approaches to human nutrition –
DeClerk et al. 2011

4. Study Sites

5. Agrarian change in tropical landscapes
Natural vegetation ‘Secondary’ vegetation Agricultural land
Agricultural modification
Treecover
Photo credits: CIFOR

6. Field Methods
In each zone the following methods are used:
Household
Surveys
Focus Group
Discussions
Key Informant
Interviews
Farm
Productivity
Surveys
Biodiversity
Surveys
Yield
measurements
Farm inputs (e.g.
fertilizer, labour)
Production
targets
Resource flow
mapping
Wealth
ranking
Food / cash
calendars
Nutrition
assessments
Ecosystem
service mapping
Community
perceptions
Tree plots
Bird point
counts
Invertebrate
trapping
METHODS
BiodiversityRelative poverty
Nutrition
Food securityEcosystem
services
Livelihoods
Agricultural
production
RESPONSES

7. FOREST (CONTROL) ZONE 1 ZONE 3ZONE 2
Agricultural modification (simplification and intensification of commodities)
Treecover
Experimental Design
A landscape-level approach, with a nested 3-level hierarchical design:
1. A landscape exhibiting changing land use practices and agrarian change
2. Three land use ‘zones’ in each landscape, a gradient of agricultural modification
3. Villages or settlements within each zone
1
2
3

8. Photo credits: CIFOR
Experimental Design
FOREST (CONTROL) ZONE 1 ZONE 3ZONE 2
Agricultural modification (simplification and intensification of commodities)
Treecover
Subsistence farming,
high dependency on
forest products
A landscape-level approach, with a nested 3-level hierarchical design:
1. A landscape exhibiting changing land use practices and agrarian change
2. Three land use ‘zones’ in each landscape, a gradient of agricultural modification
3. Villages or settlements within each zone
1
2
3

9. Photo credits: CIFOR
Experimental Design
FOREST (CONTROL) ZONE 1 ZONE 3ZONE 2
Agricultural modification (simplification and intensification of commodities)
Treecover
E.g. Subsistence farming, high
dependency on forest resources
E.g. Rubber agroforestry
system
Subsistence farming,
high dependency on
forest products
Extensive coffee
agroforesty
A landscape-level approach, with a nested 3-level hierarchical design:
1. A landscape exhibiting changing land use practices and agrarian change
2. Three land use ‘zones’ in each landscape, a gradient of agricultural modification
3. Villages or settlements within each zone
1
2
3

10. A landscape-level approach, with a nested 3-level hierarchical design:
1. A landscape exhibiting changing land use practices and agrarian change
2. Three land use ‘zones’ in each landscape, a gradient of agricultural modification
3. Villages or settlements within each zone
Experimental Design
FOREST (CONTROL) ZONE 1 ZONE 3ZONE 2
Agricultural modification (simplification and intensification of commodities)
Treecover
E.g. Subsistence farming, high
dependency on forest resources
E.g. Rubber agroforestry
system E.g. Oil palm
monoculture
Subsistence farming,
high dependency on
forest products
Extensive coffee
agroforesty
Intensive oil palm
monoculture
1
2
3

11. Study site: Kapuas Hulu, Kalimantan, Indonesia
Primary forest
Rubber agroforestry
Oil palm plantation
Oil palm concession

12. Study site: Kapuas Hulu, Kalimantan, Indonesia
Primary forest
Rubber agroforestry
Oil palm plantation
Oil palm concession

13. Study site: Kapuas Hulu, Kalimantan, Indonesia
Primary forest
Rubber agroforestry
Oil palm plantation
Oil palm concession

14. Study site: Kapuas Hulu, Kalimantan, Indonesia
Primary forest
Rubber agroforestry
Oil palm plantation
Oil palm concession

15. Study site: Kapuas Hulu, Kalimantan, Indonesia
Primary forest
Rubber agroforestry
Oil palm plantation
Oil palm concession
Photo credits: Dominic Rowland

16. Inter-country
variation in
landscape
configuration
• Unique experimental design
• Will we be able to draw any
broad scale conclusions?
• Will the heterogeneity of the
landscapes, their peoples
cultures and food systems
hinder wider inference?
A mixed model approach

17. Photo credits: CIFOR
Some interesting preliminary results….

18. Food security: The bad news (so far)

19. Forest use frequency and
proximity

20. People reliant on forests are less
food secure:
 Zone 1 people are ~1 month less food
secure on average
 People in Zones 2 and 3 are more food
secure but:
• There is a significant negative interaction
effect
- Across zones two and three food security
is reduced when people do not have
access to or utilize the forest
 Caveats
• Models need refining as there are a lot of
important variables to be added from our
large data set:
- Wealth indexes are yet to be added

21. The good news! Forests and
dietary diversity
 Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
 Zone 1 1.675186 0.067159 24.944 <2e-16 ***
 Zone 2 -0.008141 0.071356 -0.114 0.9092
 Zone 3 0.001412 0.071454 0.020 0.9842
 Number of forest products for domestic use 0.008509 0.008332 1.021 0.3071
 Weekly forest use 0.046958 0.026953 1.742 0.0815 .
 Rarely use the forest -0.029872 0.036718 -0.814 0.4159
 No forest use -0.080194 0.039467 -2.032 0.0422 *
 Household size 0.005370 0.004686 1.146 0.2518
 Total number of dependents -0.002881 0.007424 -0.388 0.6980
• There is no significant difference between zones in terms of dietary diversity
• People who do not use the forest or do not have assess to forest have lower
household dietary diversity
• ~8% reduction in dietary diversity
• Based on coarse data which is in the process of being refined
• Adds weight to the evidence on the importance of forests for rural livelihoods
and the nutritional status of families in tropical landscapes- Environmental
Income and Rural Livelihoods: A Global-Comparative Analysis, Angelsen
(2014)

22. Conclusions
 Forests play an important role in the
FSN of rural people throughout the
tropics
 Loss of forest has direct impact on
rural coping strategies
 Diets inevitably transition with access
to income and markets, understanding
the drivers is a major goal of this
project
 Contribution of forest products has
been dramatically underestimated for
diets and nutrition
 We have a large data set with over 600
variables
• Further teasing out of the more
complicated contributing factors
influencing not just FSN but wider
landscape transitions

23. www.landscapes.org
www.cifor.org