Assessing the role of agriculture-forestry-livestock nexus in improving farmers' food security in South Asia: A systematic literature review

CONTEXT: There is a growing consensus that agriculture, forestry, and livestock integration (agroforestry systems) could assist South Asia in combating food insecurity by expediting the transition towards sustainability. However, there is a dearth of a comprehensive synthesis of evidence demonstrating the actual relevance of this nexus to agroecological development and farmers' food security in South Asia-the majority of whom are smallholders with limited assets.OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study is to evaluate the potentiality of the South Asian agroforestry systems- as a viable agroecological approach for ensuring farmers' food security: food availability, access, utilization, and stability.METHODS: A systematic literature review was conducted following the guidelines provided by the "Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses" (PRISMA) to achieve the study objective. The Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection databases were used, along with Google Scholar as an additional database, to gather relevant articles for the review.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Among the 95 studies reviewed, only nine explicitly focused on food security, and none of them examined all four dimensions of food security simultaneously. Moreover, the skewed distribution of studies towards the Himalayan belt and a lack of quantitative measurement make it challenging to determine the