This paper, an extract from a review prepared for the FAO/SIDA Forests, Trees and People Programme, highlighted the important contribution of forest and farm tree resources to household food security as seasonally critical supplements to supplies of food, income and agricultural inputs, and useful assets in emergencies. Poorer people, who were most dependent on forest resources, were most likely to suffer from the growing trends of deforestation and forced dependence on the cash economy. The authors argued that existing approaches to agroforestry and management of natural forests were taking insufficient account of the value of trees as food supplies.