Engage farmers in reversing deforestion in Zambia

Fruit tree grafting as a skill supports businesses, women empowerment and environmentally friendly practices

In Zambia, girls often drop out of school too early to start taking care of their family. Therefore, WeForest has a specific focus on training women to become entrepreneurs. By learning new skills and organizing themselves, women can diversify their income and become more financially independent.

Jane N. is 42 years old and Treasurer of a women’s cooperative in Mpatamatu, in Luanshya district, Zambia. In August 2016, she followed a fruit tree grafting training together with some other women of her region. Now, one year later, she is taking the lead to organize those women into a women’s grafting group. They will graft different varieties of Orange trees (incl. Valencia) and Citrus trees (incl. Tangelo) for commercial purposes. To support them, WeForest is preparing their first order where we guarantee market take off at competitive prices for their first 500 healthy grafted fruit trees.

Women that follow those training receive mother stock, seeds and grafting equipment to start up their own micro nurseries. They are asked to invite other women in their neighborhood to disseminate the knowledge to. Also, women that come for training are engaged in reforestation where they set aside a minimum of 2 lima (0.5 ha) of land for assisted natural regeneration.

In Zambia, deforestation and forest degradation severely impacts local livelihoods and directly affects the local water table. By diversifying people’s income and engaging them in forest restoration activities, reforestation and economic benefits can go hand in hand.

Your support is now impacting more people and restoring more forest than ever.

By supporting this project you are helping to restore the threatened Miombo woodland in Zambia´s Luanshya district and empowering farmers to improve their livelihoods by keeping the forest standing. That´s good news for people, planet and climate. Remember that trees are the best technology to combat climate change. 

In October 2016, 470 farmers were involved in our project. Today, 195 more smallholder farmers have been trained and are ready to begin restoring the Miombo woodlots on their farms. With a minimum of two limas (0.5 hectares) of forest each, there is the potential to increase the area under restoration by around 100 hectares, something that wouldn´t have been possible without your support.

Our project makes sure that trees are worth more standing than felled. Farmers are trained to harvest biomass sustainably, offering families a new source of income straight from the forest itself! There are a number of other socio-economic development activities they can take up as well, including honey production from beehives installed in their Miombo woodlots.

Training took place over the course of two days. In the morning, theory classes took place, on assisted natural regeneration (the method farmers use to restore the woodlots) and beekeeping, followed by practical training in the afternoon. Almost just as many women took part as men. Out of 195 farmers, 93 were women and 102 were men. We make sure that women have the opportunity to improve their livelihoods too.

200 other farmers have signed up to receive training in 2018.

It is always extremely exciting to see the interest from people living alongside the forest we´re restoring. We couldn´t do it without them, and we couldn´t do it without you either.

Thank you for supporting our efforts. We encourage you to keep on doing so, to restore forests, empower rural families and make earth cooler.