Eighty percent of Africa's poor are farmers, most of whom rely on raising staple food crops for survival. These farmers earn little to no real income, with most raising just $200-350 worth of crops each year, mainly used to feed themselves and their families. Crop yields are often low, since many of the poorest farmers live on land characterized by poor soil quality and low fertility. To make matters worse, traditional crops often fail in even mild droughts, and this leaves millions of Africans susceptible to the erratic rainfall of the continent's many semi-arid environments.
Livelihoods that are tied to the success of one or two vulnerable, low-value crops have left hundreds of millions of Africans in chronic poverty. Without the ability to save money or access credit, these families find themselves unable to invest in ways to pull themselves out of poverty. Poor rural families can't afford fertilizer or new crop varieties to improve farm yields. They can't afford to educate their children beyond primary school. Under these circumstances, many will be unable to lift themselves out of poverty.
Given this situation, there is a tremendous need to identify ways of dramatically and sustainably boosting the income of poor farm families. One of the most promising ways to do this is by empowering them to add high-value cash crops to their farms. These crops would need to thrive in low-fertility soil and be resilient to transient droughts. Farmers would also need financing for their crop investments, training on the proper cultivation of new crops, and access to processing and marketing to maximize their cash crop income.
KOMAZA has put rural families living in absolute poverty at the center of our organization. By providing farmers with the farm inputs, training and marketing necessary for successfully farming our drought-resistant trees, we address the social need for higher farm income while also addressing the market and environmental needs for sustainable timber production.
