“The emergence of trees 350 million years ago made the planet inhabitable: the destruction of trees will make it uninhabitable.” This was the ominous warning that Tony Simons, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), gave to the high-level opening session of the FAO Forests for Food Security and Nutrition conference on Monday 13 May 2013 in Rome, Italy.

But the good news is that FAO is starting to focus attention on forests as a source of food and nutrition. High level presentations at the opening session of the event, by Jose Grazianio da Silvia (Director General FAO) and David Navarro (Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Food Security and Nutrition) emphasised this point.

Tony Simons made the case clearly for forestry and agroforestry in the main keynote event on day one. Using a visually distinctive and thought-provoking presentation, he made five key opening statements.

Perspective and timeframe is important  Forests have been around for hundreds of million of years but farming just 10 000. A particularly striking slide overlapped childhood mortality and soil degradation  The message was stark: "If you have degraded soil, your children die.”

The landscape approach was emphasised, with reference to the FAOMICCA project, which uses geospatial tools to better understand soil degradation. “And we need these better soil maps” added Simons.

Natural capital is at risk. Negative externalities cost more than agriculture's GDP. So the economics of carbon needs to change. High environmental and social considerations need to be added to our understanding of value. As an example, Simons outlined the positives of the West African experience, where in the Sahel, 5 million hectares of mostly nitrogen-fixing trees have been planted.

Nutrition is key also: more nutritious cultivars and hardier varieties can and should be developed, fruit trees can play a much greater role in providing food and vitamins, while traditional trees like the baobab have much to offer in terms of nutrition.

In concluding, Simons emphasised the need to develop food security indicators; build awareness; seek long-term investments; improve tenure; integrate research and government priorities, and promote diversity of use.

Questions from the floor brought up issues of the old food paradigm: it used to be about better cereal seeds and more fertilizers, but the need for more dimensions has emerged. As has the need to really consider externalities. “Trees,” Simons concluded, “are an intergenerational gift, but one that requires all the stakeholders to step up and make investments.”