An Overview Of Our Solution
Trees for the Future (TREES) is seeking a Farming for Biodiversity Award to scale the use of our proven Forest Garden model for growing food and incomes in Africa and throughout the developing world. Since TREES' founding in 1989, we have planted 130 million trees in more than 30 countries while developing an effective, replicable, cost-efficient model to agricultural development. The main problem we're seeking to address is securing the "buy-in" to significantly expand the use of the Forest Garden model. Each year, TREES works directly with approximately 5,000 farmers and 30,000 family and community members in Sub-Saharan Africa while helping farmers plant five million trees, grow 27 varieties of crops and shrubs, and achieve average income increases of over 400 percent. Our goal is to increase the use of our Forest Garden model to one million people by 2022.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: North America
General Information
Organization type
Sin fines de lucro/No Gubernamental
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Deserts
Forests
Grasslands
Population impacted
30,000 people/year; goal of 1 million/year by 2022
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
1-2 hectares per site
Production quantity
27 varieties of trees, crops, and shrubs
People employed
20 TREES staff, 5,000 farmers engaged per Forest Garden project
Solution
Describe your solution
TREES’ Forest Garden model was developed over 27 years of successful, on-the-ground trials in 30 countries. Our approach helps farmers to build the soil, conserve water, and expand ecological diversity on their land by transforming their attitudes toward and relationship with trees. Our technicians work on-the-ground with farmers to select a diverse selection of crops customized to their needs that allow them to grow stable incomes. We teach farmers the skills they need to continue growing and managing high-yield Forest Gardens for generations after TREES' project ends. Farmers begin to see the results of this change immediately and, by the end, are well on their way to a thriving future.
The Forest Garden model also helps achieve the following beneficial results for the farmers and communities we serve, many of which are unheard of in popular agricultural development initiatives:
● Restores, rather than degrades, natural resources
● Conserves, rather than kills, the natural biodiversity
● Reduces water consumption naturally by building soil, reducing runoff, and increasing shade
● Eliminates farmers' dependence on costly inputs
● Ends the battle between farms and forests
● Meets households' energy needs
● Promotes self-sufficiency rather than dependency
● Reduces farmers' vulnerability to risks related to markets, climate, pests, and weather extremes
● Creates greater economic resiliency and gender equity in the communities where we work
Implementation
Describe your implementation
Each Forest Garden program is designed to be completed in five phases over a maximum of four years. The length and complexity of each project and phase differs depending on the local conditions in the communities where TREES works. The five phases of Forest Garden development are described below:
Phase I: Mobilization - TREES mobilizes resources, stakeholders, and participants.
Phase II: Protection - Farmers build living, green fences to protect their Forest Gardens and plant fast-growing fertilizer trees throughout their sites, often in alleys among their crops, to further stabilize their soils and enhance fertility.
Phase III: Diversification - Farmers diversify their production by learning about and planting higher-value vegetables, fruit, nut, and timber trees while acquiring increasingly advanced skills.
Phase IV: Optimization - Farmers learn techniques to enhance and sustain their Forest Gardens, including pruning, grafting, composting, and assessing needs on an ongoing basis.
Phase V: Graduation - Farmers learn techniques to improve production and ownership of the project is transferred to farmer groups. After graduation, farmer groups continue to support each other as a team in the on-going development and management of Forest Gardens and marketing of products
Farmers see their view of agricultural production transformed through the four years of establishing a Forest Garden. Our technicians accompany them along the way, guiding them, helping them to acquire new skills, teaching them new practices, and showing them how they can utilize and market new crops.
External connections
Expanding the use of the Forest Garden model throughout the developing world will require strong partnerships with leading nonprofits, government agencies, and private sector actors. TREES already has several collaborative relationships underway and is constantly expanding the number of groups we work with. For example, in Senegal, we partner with Jane Goodall Institute-Spain and the US Peace Corps on Forest Garden projects consisting of 1,654 families, comprised of 12,069 people, across our four projects in Senegal.
In 2016, TREES formalized an exciting new partnership with Learning In Non-Governmental Organizations (LINGOs), a leader in the development of scaled solutions that help nonprofits solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Our organizations are currently working together to create the world’s first globally appropriate, scalable, and certifiable agroforestry training of trainers (ToT) program. LINGOS is also assisting TREES in the development of a new Forest Garden Resource Center that will service two main purposes: 1) Provide free, open, online access to learning related to the ToT program and Forest Garden development; and 2) Provide practitioners with a mobile accessible, device independent, screen responsive and low bandwidth online portal to access, share and discuss all Forest Garden support materials for farmers and facilitators.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
Two of most serious issues faced by rural communities in developing world are widespread poverty and the degradation of land caused by environmentally destructive farming practices. TREES’ Forest Garden model directly addresses these issues by helping impoverished farmers in the developing world increase family food security, generate sustainable income, and revitalize degraded lands. In Senegal, Uganda and Tanzania alone, TREES has helped families increase the number of trees from an average of 10 to 4,000 per hectare and diversify the number of crops per family from an average of three varieties to ten per hectare. The Forest Garden is an ecologically sustainable, multi-tiered mixture of trees, shrubs, and crops grown on one-to-two hectares of land. Unlike destructive farming practices, Forest Gardens help restores, rather than degrades, natural resources. It is a tree-centric system of agriculture that has been used successfully for hundreds of years around the globe.
Describe the context in which you are operating
This year, more than 400 million people, or half the total population in Sub-Saharan Africa, will spend each day in extreme poverty. Most of these people are rural farmers suffering from declining investment in agricultural systems in Africa while seeing their yields fall from years of destructive farming practices and expensive chemical usage.
At the same time, there is a demonstrated need among agricultural development and food assistance organizations for proven, cost-efficient, and adaptable training resources. For example, in Africa, there are large populations of low-literate farmers that lack access to agricultural best practices. Reaching these farmers with the information they need is difficult for organizations lacking the capacity to tailor resources to a variety of different cultures, languages, and geographies.
TREES seeks to address and solve these issues in the long-term by focusing on 1) Teaching our Forest Garden program for growing food and increasing incomes to impoverished farming communities living along environmentally-degraded trade corridors in East and West Africa, and 2) Training agricultural extension experts and food assistance organizations in Forest Garden development so they can implement to model independently.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
In each and every community TREES has worked in since its founding in 1989, we have permanently impacted the lives of the farmers and community members we help to implement our Forest Garden model. We measure the specific impact of our activities with the use of an innovative mobile monitoring and evaluation system that allows us to track numbers of trees planted and important statistics about our program in real-time. Data collection begins with a baseline survey and continues through the (up to) four-year Forest Garden program as we track participants’ progress and achievements.
The data we’ve collected so far shows that participation in a Forest Garden project results in an increase of crops grown from three to at least 12. In addition, the average farmer has just 16 trees on a hectare of land when a Forest Garden program begins. By the end of the Forest Garden project, farmers increase the number of trees on their land to a minimum of 2,000, and an average of 4,000. With these marked changes at the end of each Forest Garden project, we see an average income increase for our farmers of 400 percent, with some increasing their income up to 1,000 percent.
Language(s)
English, French, variety of local dialects in Sub-Saharan Africa
Water
Forest Gardens decrease the reliance of farmers on costly chemicals that pollute local waterways. TREES' data collection efforts include tracking the pounds of fertilizers, pesticides, etc. that farmers reduce as part of Forest Garden implementation. Living fences and a focus on planting trees helps decrease erosion from fields during heavy storms that can also pollute rivers, lakes, and streams.
Food Security/Nutrition
In addition to decreasing the use of harmful farming practices, eliminating food insecurity is the most important goal of TREES' Forest Garden model. Each Forest Garden starts with a baseline survey conducted by TREES staff that identifies the number of food crops grown, days of food insecurity, and a variety of other food security/nutrition indicators. In Senegal, our data shows that 86 percent of participants report no food insecurity after the first year, 100 percent after the second year.
Economic/Sustainable Development
Forest Garden project sites are chosen along environmentally-degraded trade corridors, ensuring farmers are able to take advantage of relatively close proximity to markets. Our baseline survey measures the value of crops sold at the onset of a Forest Garden project. Data shows that farmers who complete the (up to) four-year project average income increases of 400 percent with some seeing increases up to 1,000 percent.
Climate
In addition to providing fruits, berries, and nuts, Forest Gardens provide environmental services that are essential for families in the developing world: they can improve the fertility of degraded soils (through nitrogen fixation), prevent wind and soil erosion (thereby also contributing to improved fertility), increase water penetration into underground aquifers, and contribute to improvements in the growing environment.
Sustainability
TREES' Forest Garden projects are undertaken with financial support from individuals, businesses, foundations, and government agencies. There is no cost to farmers to participate. The economic sustainability of our program for the farmers we serve is paramount to our work. Survey data has shown that farmers who participate in our Forest Garden projects average an income increase of 400 percent, with some seeing increases of up to 1,000 percent. In order to expand the reach of our Forest Garden program, TREES is investigating the feasibility of several different self-sustaining program models, including fee-for-service, microfinance, and an "Adopt a Trainer" program modeled on our successful "Adopt a Project" program for business partners.
Return on investment
TREES’ Forest Garden model is unique in the fact that it has proven to be one of the most efficient and effective agricultural development tools currently being used in Africa. At the cost of $640 per participant for all four years of the program, we help plan, design, plant, educate, and empower poor African farmers to implement a proven agroforestry strategy that generates average income increases of 400 percent, with some farmers seeing increases as high as 1000 percent. The average farmer has 16 trees on their land when a Forest Garden program begins, increasing to up to 4,000 when the program ends. These results continue for years and generations after TREES' Forest Garden program is completed and transitioned back to the farmers.
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
Currently, TREES has 14 Forest Garden projects operating in our target countries of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, and Cameroon in Sub-Saharan Africa. These projects benefit approximately 5,000 farmers and 30,000 community members per year. Over TREES' history, the Forest Garden model has been used successfully in more than 30 countries. It is a program that is so simple and effective, we believe it can be replicated anywhere. TREES is working to scale our programming in two main ways: 1) Teaching our Forest Garden program for growing food and increasing incomes to impoverished farming communities in East and West Africa, and 2) Training agricultural extension experts and food assistance organizations from around the world in Forest Garden development. In the next year, TREES will release a new web-based Forest Garden Resource Center and "Training of Trainers" program that will allow Solution Search and other groups to implement their own Forest Garden projects independently.