India, Sept. 17 -- Forests and trees play a crucial role in providing nutritious food, and more than 5 billion people worldwide rely on them to some extent for their livelihoods, yet their contribution to feeding people remains largely overlooked in national statistics and policy frameworks, according to a new report.

The report, Forests for food: Nourishing people, sustaining the planet, published on September 15, 2026 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and developed jointly with the Landscape Alliance, highlights the importance of forests in reducing hunger and poverty and calls on countries to include them into agrifood system policies.

Forests' key contributions

The report highlighted the many way...