After much pondering and research on how we can make this work, we decided to partner up with the non-profit organisation "Trees for the Future"
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So for every bottle you buy we donate the equivalent amount that is needed not just to plant a tree but provide ongoing support to the grower/farmer
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Trees for the Future (TREES) is currently working with thousands of farming families across nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Most families have smallholdings of 2/3 acre farms that have been deforested.
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Decades of unsustainable agriculture practices have resulted in degraded and unproductive land; nutrient-scarce food systems; and farming families who are unable to grow and sell enough to meet their most basic needs. Using the Forest Garden Approach in semi-arid countries like Senegal, TREES have proven that agroforestry is a solution to each of these challenges, effectively ending hunger and poverty while restoring the land and environment.
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What this means is that trees are planted around the borders and throughout the farm. Among their many benefits, these trees help build mini ecosystems on the land due to better land water retention and biodiversity .
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Trees are magnificent organisms that can help combat the negative effects of climate change. Trees provide oxygen, habitats, food, fuelwood, animal fodder, and much more.
Forest Gardens take advantage of all those benefits to sustainably revitalize degraded land and improve the lives of farming families. Through their Forest Garden Approach, TREES have proven that the integration of trees into agriculture and landscapes can help farmers transform their degraded soils into fertile land, increase water penetration into underground aquifers, prevent wind and soil erosion, and trap moisture and nutrients in the soils so that crops can thrive.
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These aren't just random trees either, many are fruit and nut trees that help sustain the growers.
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The thing that really convinced us to start a partnership with Trees for the Future is that they don't simply walk away after just planting.
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Their signature Forest Garden training program lasts four years. Which guides farmers through a series of steps to transform their field: Protection, Diversification, Optimisation.
At the end of the four years, farmers have designed, established, managed and optimised their Forest Gardens and they celebrate with a graduation ceremony. When farmers complete their training and graduate, they are Forest Garden experts in their own right. While their formal training ends with graduation, many graduates remain involved with TREES. Many sign up for the Plant it Forward program, providing training and guidance to neighbouring farmers and expanding the impact of TREES even further. Some of the TREES training staff are former beneficiaries of the program too!
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Want to learn more? Just head over to their website,
https://trees.org