Giant Trees for Climate Change Mitigation in India

Dear Supporter,

In the last quarter, our team did something that we never thought would create a huge opportunity to connect people across the globe to giant tree conservation. They developed a superfood- jackfruit seed powder. It is an exceptionally versatile product that could be used to make smoothies, pancakes, custard and delicious brownie without choclate ( as you don't need one). The purpose- to build skills of local communities in making products from fruits, nuts of giant trees that are environment friendly as well as healthy. In turn this generates sustainable income generation opportunities for the local communities and broadens the constituency of giant conservation stewards. . 

In order to asess whether we have sufficient supply for value chain- jackfruit seed powder- development, our field team mapped 629 large trees of Jackfruits owned by 170 families in 12 villages from Sangameshwar block. The survey results indicated that these old trees were phenomenal in production of jackfruits. The estimated number of fruits we could collect and process from these trees was 15725. From these number of fruits, it was further estimated that we could make 3800 Kg of jackfruit seed powder. Looking at the growing interest in and demand for plant based glutane free food products in the US and other developed economies of the world, one can easily assume a price of USD 20/ Kg for a ethically sourced and fair certified powder. This could translate into a revenue of USD 76000.

Even if we leave 30% fruits for wild animals as recommended by FAIRWILD certification protocol, the revenue/ profit would be still sufficient to pay for the conservation of these trees and also cover the yearly compensation of field team of 5 that would be fully engaged in this enterprise. So much for the economics of value chain and rural employment.

These trees provide habitat for many threatened birds such as hornbills and canopy dependent mamals such as civets, giant squirrels, bonnet macques.This is increasingly important as the community forests don't have giant trees in these numbers any more. They have long sold it for making quick money.

From climate perspective, these trees store significant amount of carbon. The data revealed that these 629 trees store 223 tons of carbon OR that they have sequestered 819 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

I think there is huge opportunity here to make conservation a commercial success. Your support and guidance in promoting Jackfruit seed powder as superfood would go long way in building a green economic model that will generate long term ecological benefits for the critical ecosystem and economic benefits for local communities. 

Thanks for your continued interest in and support to this important cause.

Best 

• Linking conservation and superfood value chain (PDF)