Planting fruit trees on farms improves dietary quality, according to new research from Malawi that tracked nearly 1,000 households over 10 years. The study, published in Conservation Letters, found that families who had trees on their farms ate more fruits and vegetables than those without trees. The research examined data from 936 households across Malawi between 2010 and 2020, using surveys from the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study. Families with trees on their farms had a 3% increase in vegetable consumption compared with those without trees. For every additional tree species a household owned, fruit consumption increased by 5%. While these percentages may seem modest, they represent meaningful progress given the extremely low baseline consumption levels. The World Health Organization recommends eating 400 grams (14 ounces, or five servings) of fruits and vegetables daily, but the study found rural Malawians averaged only 51 g (1.8 oz) of fruit per person each day. Many people in sub-Saharan Africa don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables. In Malawi, about 18% of the population is undernourished, and vitamin deficiencies are common. “These are small effect sizes, but the positive relationship demonstrates that having on-farm trees may improve fruit and vegetable consumption for rural smallholders,” Charlotte Hall, the study’s lead author and a lecturer at the University of Stirling in Scotland, told Mongabay. An important caveat of the study is that most households were surveyed during the dry season when trees weren’t producing fruit. However, researchers “still found a relationship between having trees on…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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