We plant

We PlantInnovative Agriculture and Forestry enables farmers to make the best possible use of the resources that they already possess. We teach and promote agroforestry, reforestation, soil conservation, and a host of other sustainable techniques.
Subsistence farmers grow their crops to eat, rather than to sell. The land is where they extract their entire subsistence. Thus improving their agriculture radically improves their diet, nutrition, health and income.
We have focused on farmers who live in areas severely affected by deforestation. Most often they contributed to that deforestation, clearing the land for farming or firewood. Deforestation exacerbates erosion and dries up the land, making a plot productive for two years or less. Many farm steep hillsides since this is the only land available to the poorest families. This makes it even more difficult to survive.
Floresta teaches a particular type of agriculture that is particularly suited to these steep eroded hillsides: agroforestry. Agroforestry combines trees with more traditional agriculture, in ways that provide unique benefits both to traditional crops and the land. For example the trees reduce erosion, slow evaporation and provide shade. Some may provide other benefits, such as fixing nitrogen in the soil or acting as natural pest control. At the same time the trees provide many useful products such as fruit. They make it possible for a hillside farm to produce more and be productive for a much longer period.
As Floresta has grown, we have expanded our toolbox to include other agricultural techniques. We are teaching the use of cover crops, raised-bed gardening, seed selection, soil conservation, natural pest control, organic farming, fish farming and animal husbandry. In areas where villages still have access to significant natural forest resources, we have begun to teach sustainable forestry management. Projects include assisting communities to start local tree nurseries and replant unproductive hillsides.
As a result of our work over 2 million trees have been planted by participating farmers and crop yields have dramatically increased. Farmers in Haiti have told us that they are getting up to three times as much corn and beans as before.
Many of the crops being grown have commercial value, so farmers are able to improve their income, and begin to change their economic situation.