Across Kenya and Africa, the question of what ends on people's plates is no longer just about quantity—it's about quality, diversity, and sustainability. As climate change, land degradation, and poor diets threaten human and planetary health, agroecology is emerging as a powerful solution. At the heart of this integrated solution is Prof. Alex Awiti, Principal Scientist and Agroecology Lead at the Centre for International Forestry Research and International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF). With a background in ecosystem ecology and a focus on agriculture, food systems, climate policy, and higher education, Prof. Awiti lends expertise to Africa's food systems through science, policy, and public engagement.
Speaking to Nutrition Connect, Prof. Awiti explores how the science and practice of agroecology can move beyond research plots and into kitchens and communities—fueling healthier diets, smarter investments, and a more resilient food future, and how CIFOR-ICRAF, the CGIAR and broader public-private partnerships can work together to ensure that science truly feeds us all.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How does CIFOR-ICRAF integrate agroforestry and agriculture to improve food and nutrition?
We are a tree-focused organisation working across forests, conservation areas, common lands, and farms. Our mission is to deliver tree-based solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges, including food and nutrition security, biodiversity loss, social inequality and climate change. We address these issues by improving soil health, enhancing farm and landscape-level biodiversity, improving rural livelihoods, and strengthening the climate resilience of food systems through the integration of agroforestry in farming landscapes. In terms of nutrition, our focus is on promoting diversified diets through agroforestry. Trees, especially fruit trees, are indispensable for advancing nutrition and dietary diversity, delivering critical vitamins, fibre, and micronutrients that fortify health, combat malnutrition, and strengthen community resilience in resource-limited settings. Agroforestry trees also play a critical role in improving soil health by improving soil aeration and water infiltration, deep nutrient cycling, and replenishment of organic matter through litter fall and root turnover. By enhancing soil health, agroforestry trees transform soils into living, nutrient-rich ecosystems; hence, they serve as the deep-rooted engine for regenerative and agroecological food systems.
Agroforestry plays a vital role in providing high-quality protein-rich fodder for livestock, which in turn provides valuable soil nutrient sources through manure. Hence, the integration of trees, crops and livestock is critical to accelerating and enhancing the regenerative capacity of smallholder farming systems. Therefore, agroforestry directly influences what ends up on people's plates—in Kenya and across the region.
Q: Has CIFOR-CRAF published any research material related to food crops?
We are an agroforestry and forest organisation. Our strength lies in generating science-based evidence to inform policy and practice on diversified and integrated tree-crop production systems—particularly in the tropics. CIFOR-ICRAF has generated critical evidence and practical guidelines on integrating agroforestry with food crops like maize, sorghum, beans, and tubers. Our work has shown that systems such as rotational nitrogen-fixing fallows and alley cropping significantly boost maize yields across sub-Saharan Africa. We have also demonstrated that conserving and restoring natural forests enhances key ecosystem services – carbon storage, water productivity, and pollination – that underpin sustainable agriculture.
Q: How is CIFOR-CRAF influencing policy and investment decisions concerning affordable, diverse, and nutritious foods?
We are actively engaged in sub-national, national and continental and global policy discourse. For example, CIFOR-ICRAF scientists played a central role in the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE), which led to the development of 13 Agroecological Principles that underpin the transition to healthy and nutritious diets. Similarly, CIFOR-ICRAF played a key role in the 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit, which committed to nourishing everyone for health and well-being. Here on the continent, we are engaged with the African Union on the implementation of the commitments of the 2024 Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit to enhance soil health for diverse, healthy and nutritious crops. Moreover, we are engaged in the post-Malabo CAADP commitments. In Kenya, CIFOR-ICRAF, through the One CGIAR initiative, supported the development of the Kenya National Agroecology Strategy for Food Systems Transformation (2024-2033). A key objective of the Strategy is to promote sustainable consumption and transition towards healthy, diverse, and sustainable diets for all.
Q: What does a "healthy plate" look like to you?
A healthy plate includes carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and water— what we all learned in primary school. The only difference now would be in the cultural methods of preparing food and household preferences. A healthy plate is one that offers nutritional security, as it is foundational for human capital development, social stability, and economic prosperity.
Q: Are current investments in agroecology and diverse and nutritious diets?
No. Currently, agroecological practices are marginalised, perceived by the proponents of the agro-chemical model as "anti-progressive" and a threat to production and food sufficiency. Monocultures, mainly cereals that are starch-dense and nutrient-poor, remain the norm. For example, there is minimal investment in the production and use of organic resources, as well as the integration of diverse, culturally appropriate, and climate-adapted crops in smallholder farming systems.
Public policy incentives, including subsidies and investment in both research and technical areas, are directed towards the green revolution model —the legacy agricultural technologies that significantly increased the production of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat, maize, and rice, but at the expense of long-term soil health, biodiversity, household nutrition, and social equity. Unfortunately, this green revolution model checks only one box: production. Relying on this model is like sitting on a one-legged stool; it's unstable and only hurts dietary diversity, farm and landscape biodiversity and social equity.
We need policies and investments that incentivise farmers to grow diverse crops and increase the production and use of organic resources. Think about scaling agroecological practices through conditional payments to smallholder farmers to adopt multi-purpose agroforestry (timber, fuelwood, medicinal, fruits) to keep poultry/livestock and vegetables. Bonus payments could be made possible through ecosystem service payment schemes based on verifiable improvements in soil carbon storage and increased water infiltration.
Q: How can public-private partnerships bridge the gap in nutritious food access?< /p>
By strengthening institutional procurement. For example, schools could contract local farmers to supply diverse foods for meal programmes, guaranteeing markets for nutritious produce. Furthermore, we must think more creatively about public financing for diverse and nutritious diets. If we can establish a national affordable housing fund, why not a sustainable, regenerative agriculture for nutrition fund? A dedicated national fund to promote nutritious, affordable diets would drive systemic change – supporting both producers and consumers, as well as other critical value chain actors in building healthier food systems.
Q: What barriers prevent healthier diets?
I think the one thing that we must reckon with, which is sad, is that there is limited, inequitable access to diverse and nutritious foods.
I attribute this to three main issues:
- Policy failure
We're incentivising unsustainable practices, especially at the production level. We are privileging the very old culturally and ecologically inappropriate monoculture model, which now offers a global overabundance of cereals rich in starch at the expense of nutrition-dense and diverse diets.
- Cost: Nutrient-rich foods are expensive due to low production
Policies that privilege monocultures are largely responsible for low production and poor access to nutritious foods. Markets allocate value based on supply and demand. When cereals are overproduced and diverse, nutritious foods, including fruits, are in short supply, the latter become expensive – pricing out consumers and discouraging demand despite their nutritional value.
- Lack of awareness
The other issue is the lack of nutritional information and awareness, perpetuated by misleading advertising of processed foods, which overshadows nutrition education. How can we, in prime-time TV, broadcast advertisements for highly processed, unhealthy food?
Q: Can agroecology feed the world?
Yes. Agroecology offers a systems-based, balanced approach to food systems. It delivers improved productivity through enhanced nutrient use efficiency and strengthened resilience by improving the supply of vital ecosystem services while also securing social equity by increasing the participation of farmers in food value chains. So, agroecology goes beyond producing food and feed. Conversely, the dominant monocultures, owing to the overuse of fertilisers, destroy critical biodiversity, and the chokehold of big agriculture multinationals disenfranchise smallholder farmers from local value chains. The sole use of mineral fertilisers in Kenya, for example, drives soil acidification, reducing the effectiveness of fertilisers and crop productivity, which diminishes returns for both public and household investments. Simply put, agrochemical-based monoculture systems cannot sustainably meet global food demands without integrating agroecological practices that improve soil health and enhance fertiliser efficiency.
Now, agroecology is helping to reimagine and reengineer the agro-chemical model. By investing in sustainable soil health and integrated production systems—including agroforestry and crop-livestock integration— agroecology lays the foundation for resilient livelihoods and nutrition-sensitive agriculture.
Q: There's a growing narrative that we don't need to increase global food production because we already produce enough. Do you agree with this?
Yes, I agree with that assessment—but only partially. It's true that, in terms of gross calorific value, the world produces more than enough food. However, what's troubling—and what very few people talk about—is that this surplus production contributes very little to actual health and diets.
We often celebrate food security in terms of quantities—stockpiles of rice, wheat, and maize. But where are the proteins and fruits essential for a balanced diet? Those are largely missing. Without them, we're not solving malnutrition; we're simply flooding the planet with empty calories. And yes, calories matter—but on their own, they're not enough. They lead to unbalanced, often unhealthy diets.
Q: What's your view on using biofortification to improve nutrition in staple crops for healthy plates?
I often challenge food and nutrition experts on this. Yes, we have developed technology to biofortify foods—adding micronutrients like zinc, magnesium, and boron to crops such as maize, sorghum, and beans. But here's the truth: these nutrients are already naturally present in the soil.
The real problem is that our soils are so degraded that plants can no longer access those nutrients. Instead of engineering nutrients into crops, we should focus on restoring the health of our soils. If you fix the soil—through regenerative and agroecological practices—the plants will naturally absorb those micronutrients and deposit them into the edible plant parts. That's a much more sustainable and holistic approach.
Q: Final thoughts?
Our capacity to respond to the challenges of the current unsustainable food systems can only be limited by our imagination. Reorienting agricultural policies and investments to value and integrate natural capital – soil, water, biodiversity– into national accounting and GDP redefines these resources from undervalued externalities or "produced capital" into critical assets for building sustainable, regenerative economies.
It's time to transform how we feed the world – starting with Africa. Agroecological and regenerative approaches are more than just farming methods; they represent a bold reimagining of our relationship between people, their prosperity, and the planet. To secure healthy plates and thriving communities, we must act now by championing policies, research, and partnerships that put nutrition, social equity, and resilience at the heart of food systems, not just short-term yields. Let's invest in a future that nourishes all.
