Pelletier conducted this work as part of the NatureNet Science Fellows Program, a joint research project funded by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and The Nature Conservancy. She works in the research group led by Chris Barrett, the Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor at Dyson.
"There are synergies to using a modern hybrid seed and good agronomic techniques to maintain healthy soils with stopping the degradation of tropical forests and halting climate change," said Barrett, the paper's senior author.
"Promoting improved maize seed uptake among smallholder farmers - which Zambia and many other governments do - is not only boosting yield, but it is reducing pressure on large forests," Barrett said. "This is good news."
Zambia has about 44 million hectares of forests that are dominated by the Miombo Woodland, an ecological region that is home to a diverse population of wildlife. The total mass of the forests has substantially dwindled since 2000: Zambia lost more than 1.3 million forested hectares between 2000 and 2012, which is referenced in the paper. A hectare is approximately 2.5 acres.
The Zambian government is looking at ways to reduce national deforestation.
"If we can produce more food per hectare with better seed, and by improving soil health," Pelletier said, "we can protect those much-needed forests."
In addition to Pelletier and Barrett, co-authors were Hambulo Ngoma, of the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute, Lusaka, Zambia; and Nicole M. Mason, associate professor of agriculture, food and resource economics at Michigan State University.