Trees for the Future needs your help to grow thousands of fruit trees to help 288 farming families in Tawa, Kenya. A new juice factory offers an exciting market opportunity for these farmers, especially women. The trees will be planted in Forest Gardens, which enable poor farming families to transform their degraded farms into tree-based agricultural systems. Each family's Forest Garden will increase their market access, grow more foods, and bring farms into sustainable productivity.
In Tawa, Kenya, smallholder farmers depend on their land for income, food and fuel. Many farmers grow one or few crops, and their lands are very degraded due to long-term unsustainable farming methods. Farming families are therefore trapped in a cycle of poverty, food shortages and land degradation. Farmers currently struggle to support their families with minimal amounts of vegetables and other food staples. Farmers must sustainably diversify their production in order to increase incomes.
This project will make poor farmers more prosperous and resilient by growing fruit trees in forest gardens. With your support, 200 families will plant fruit trees and manage their own productive Forest Gardens.Our Forest Gardens are locally appropriate, multi-layered planting systems that combine diverse varieties of crops and trees. They provide farming families with sustainable sources of income, nutritious fruits and vegetables, livestock fodder, fuelwood and other forest products.
Once Forest Gardens are established, over 1000 people in the participating families in Tawa can link to new market opportunities. They can break the cycles of poverty, hunger and natural resource degradation that limit their opportunities and potential to improve their livelihoods. The sustainable farming methods of the Forest Garden provide: 1) income from locally-marketable products 2) nutritious, diverse foods for consumption and 3) healthy soils, land and water quality improvements.
