FAO, SEI, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International publication, “Climate and Ecosystem Service Benefits of Forests and Trees for Agriculture,” highlights the critical role of forests and trees in enhancing agricultural productivity, resilience, and sustainability. The report challenges the idea that forests and agriculture compete, offering solutions for nature-positive, resilient food systems.
Forests don’t compete with agriculture: they complete it
The global agrifood system is at a critical juncture as it strives to meet rising food security demands while confronting the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. A key manifestation of the challenge is land-use competition, which results in forests being cleared for agriculture to expand and thrive. Around the world, the dominant policy and practice paradigm inadvertently treats forests and agriculture as mutually exclusive, driving unsustainable practices since the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the 19th century.
Consequently, a productivist orientation toward food production has prevailed, one based on the logic of subduing nature to maximize yield and uphold a “cheap food” paradigm. This mode of production has become so normalized that it perpetuates the mistaken belief that food production is a long-solved challenge- one that is yesterday’s priority and does not need further attention. In reality, the very foundation of this system is deeply flawed, and its dominance has created a knowledge gap that makes it difficult to imagine and understand alternative relationships between food production systems and nature.
Recognizing this challenge, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its partners including Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Conservation International (CI) and the Nature Conservancy (TNC) commissioned a report on “Climate and Ecosystem Service Benefits of Forests and Trees for Agriculture”. The report consolidates the latest scientific evidence and stresses the urgent need to embed emerging scientific insights on forest-agriculture synergies into policy and practice. The report challenges the narrative of competition between forests and agriculture, instead presenting compelling evidence that the two can thrive together. Forests, it argues, are not obstacles to production but integral parts of resilient and productive agriculture systems.
The report builds on FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture in 2023 and 2024, to critically address the true cost of food. The 2023 report reveal grossly underestimated social, economic and environmental costs of food production worth approximately USD 10 trillion in hidden costs.
New and emerging scientific evidence calls for a shift towards recognizing forests and trees as essential for agricultural productivity and resilience, rather than merely viewing them as conservation assets.
Key highlights of the report
Climate Moderation: Trees provide crucial global, regional and local climate regulation that sustain agriculture and improve resilience. Through mechanisms such as canopy shading and evapotranspiration, forests and trees regulate temperature and deliver significant cooling effects that shape microclimates and buffer nearby croplands from heat stress, drought and extreme temperature events.
Hydrology mediation: Forests and trees act like living sponges, intercepting rainfall, and slowing runoff that would otherwise erode fertile soils. Their roots open pathways for water to seep deep into the ground, storing moisture that sustains crops long after the rains have passed. Some trees even redistribute water underground, lifting it from deep reserves to the surface where nearby plants can reach it. These processes stabilize water supplies and enhance drought resilience.
Agricultural workers‘ health and productivity: As rising temperatures make agricultural work increasingly hazardous, forests emerge as natural protectors of rural workers. By mitigating extreme heat, forests reduce the risks of heat stress, exhaustion, dehydration and even mortality among those who labor outdoors to produce our food. The report highlights growing evidence that forest cover helps moderate local temperatures and provides cooler microclimates, creating safer working conditions for agricultural workers.
Biodiversity mediation: Forest ecosystems are home to pollinators that increase productivity and pest predators that reduce crop damage and dependence on synthetic chemicals. They support soil organisms that facilitate decomposition and replenish soil organic matter, thereby enriching soil fertility.
An imaginary glimpse into the future: optimistic visions of 2070 and beyond
It is 2070 in the countryside of Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, where a small family farm stands as a testament to how working with forests transformed the future of agriculture. The farm belongs to the Silva family, whose grandparents once struggled through the droughts and heatwaves that plagued the late 20th century. Back then, forests were often seen as obstacles to agricultural expansion and trees were cleared to make room for crops.
The Silvas chose a different path. They kept the strip of native forest that lined the edge of their property and nurtured native trees on their farms. Over the decades, that decision became their greatest investment. The trees moderated temperatures during heatwaves, reduced soil erosion, and kept soils moist long after rains had passed. Their agroforestry farms are full of life-pollinators, pest predators, and organic matter decomposers that support soil regeneration. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides have become relics of a past era. Perhaps most tellingly, farm workers, once vulnerable to dangerous heat exposure, now labor under the protection of tree shade and moderated microclimates.
The Silva family’s story mirrors a broader transformation across Brazil and beyond where the old “forest versus agriculture” debate has faded and a new dawn of forest-agriculture complementarities has emerged.
Conclusion
By designing production systems that work with forests rather than against them, agriculture can evolve from being a driver of climate change and biodiversity loss into a powerful ally for ecosystem restoration. Far from a utopian idea, this vision is a practical pathway already rooted in science and indigenous knowledge. What is now needed is a shift in how we act on this knowledge.