3 neglected tree species that feed millions and restore land

Tropical tree-sourced foods are sometimes clustered as “lost, underutilized or neglected” because they are overlooked by governments and development agencies. But hundreds of millions depend upon them, and they have huge potential to contribute significantly to the availability of fruit and vegetables.

At World Agroforestry ICRAF, these trees jump out at us in surveys. We found fruit from the Balinites tree to be the most frequently eaten fruit by women in northwest Uganda in the previous 24 hours. In still unpublished data, the Center for International Forestry Research CIFOR found rural women across all agro-ecological zones in Zambia had eaten wild fruits more than twice as frequently as cultivated fruits in the previous seven days.

“We have strong evidence of their value, and they may be contributing even more than we know,” says ICRAF’s Stepha McMullin, who designs tree portfolios to cope with seasonal availability.