The Earth Fund Solutions

(See “$1 = in Overview section)

Additional benefits:

- 400% increase in income (on average) for farmers (Data Sheet Tab 4)

- Significantly improved nutrition (Data Sheet Tab 3)

- Enables a micro-local food supply chain

- Soil regeneration

- Increased biodiversity

- Resilience against flooding

- Resilience against crop failure

- Restoration of local watersheds

The DDC team has been extremely impressed by the leadership team's ability to achieve remarkable results while remaining lean and efficient.

TFTF have demonstrated exceptional credibility backed by policies that support transparency with clear delineation of roles. The team bios and information can be found here https://trees.org/team/

See their "About Us" page for Mission and Vision. See Values here (page 5).

More information on their approach can be found here.

The Forest Garden Approach (FGA) leverages nature's processes (through principles of Permaculture) to maximize impact with minimal resources. The solution meets the needs of those who benefit from the program, while providing a clear and direct path to persistent and self-generating positive outcomes. See more details of the solution here https://trees.org/approach/

The Forest Garden approach is a generally universal solution-set that could provide equally positive results in many other regions struggling with hunger, poverty and ecological degradation. The total potential of this solution-set at a large scale is significant, though it is likely that the cost to achieve similar results will vary on different continents. There are very few if any elements of the FGA that could not be applied elsewhere.

TFTF is building capacities to scale training further through training videos.

The FGA results in a natural resource for farmers that will continually generate economic and agricultural returns that do not require additional external investment to maintain. After the initial 4 years of time and financial investment in farmer education, Forest Gardens are able to continue generating benefits deep into the future. Furthermore, forest gardens continue to provide ecological benefits year after year (soil enrichment, air quality, regenerates watershed, increased biodiversity, flooding resiliency).

(To see Data Sheet Tab 4 click here)

While the Forest Garden approach is an extremely self-sustaining model, there may be more efficient training approaches that would reduce the amount of time necessary to educate farmers to the point of self-sufficiency. Currently it takes 4 years to establish total self-sufficiency

The Forest Garden is a uniquely resilient solution for a variety of reasons--most notably the FGA enables farmers their own sovereign source of food and all the tools necessary to increase income by 400% on average--all embedded into their backyard. The decentralized, micro-local food supply chain is uniquely resilient to the potential for politically motivated disruption of food supply. The FGA itself provides ecological resilience to climate change and flooding. It is a more antifragile approach than monocropping, which is at risk of total crop failure and may only be harvested once/annually compared to harvests throughout the year. Forest Gardens satisfy so many dimensions of need (economic, nutritional, ecological) that farmers choosing to reverse their own progress through short-term gains (selling land, clear-cutting, etc) is low.

TFTF publishes their financial reports annually for anyone to review. You can read their financials, IRS audit reports and financial reports here: https://trees.org/financial-information/.

TFTF was rated 100% in “Accountability & Transparency” by Charity Navigator: Click here

TFTF also received GuideStar's Platinum Seal of Transparency: Click here

Trees.org exhibits clear and accessible information about ongoing activities and internal initiatives.

Current operations and execution plans can be seen in detail in their impact report.

Their education programs and execution plans can also be found here.

TFTF posts photos and/or educational materials and clips daily or weekly on Instagram and Facebook related to real farmers.

Extensive impact reports and monitoring are available on their website trees.org

Trees for the Future was established in 1989.

(They're basically an Ent!)

As of the date of this vetting (September, 2020) TFTF has planted 190,000,000 trees, restored 28,279 acres of land and directly impacted 111,727 people whose lives have been transformed thanks to the Forest Garden approach (and more are being planted all the time!).

TFTF was incorporated as a tree planting public charity in 1989 and the focus on Forest garden systems specifically began in 2015, but had been in development for years prior.

DDC highlights these embodied values apparent from our vetting:

1) Accessibility, demonstrated by solutions that are designed to make the approach accessible to everyone--especially those in extreme poverty.

2) Diversity, where the Forest Garden solution is extremely diversified--ecologically, economically and for and through the people it serves.

3) Entrepreneurialism, through the application of strong organizational and business principles in their approach to tackling hunger, poverty and ecological restoration (evident in strategy, operations, leadership and their learning-based approach).

4) Results, embodied by TFTF's remarkable ability to create precise and measurable impact over time with a strong focus on data collection and optimization.

Click here to see all values on Page 8 of their 2019 Impact Report.

“Bring 2 million rural farmers out of poverty by planting 1,000,000 forest gardens (effectively planting 1 billion trees in the process).”

Trees for the Future has a plan to scale to 1,000,000 Forest Gardens by 2030, planting 1 billion trees. The total projected budget for this plan is $250,000,000.

Since 1989, Trees for the Future has refined their process to reduce costs and ensure as much goes to the farmers and trees as possible. They have been able to reliably plant trees for as little as $0.10 per tree. As they scale to a larger goal, $0.25 per tree accounts for total costs. The plan is well founded on past credibility and proof-cases. This, paired with TFTF's strong focus on transparency give us strong confidence in the financials behind this plan.

$1 =

- 4 trees planted

- 16 lbs of CO2 removed/ year

- 63.56 sq ft of land restored

- 15 lbs of organic fruits & vegetables harvested

These results are fully realized after 5 years.

(To see Data Sheet Tab 1 click here)

Achieving the big goal would additional result in the following benefits:

- Eradicates hunger for 2 million people, continuously.

- 320,000 acres converted from monocropped or desertified farmland to sustainable forest gardens with farmers (2,500 trees/acre).

- 1 Forest Garden produces 7.7 tons of organic produce within 4 years.

- 46.28 million tons of CO2 sequestered over 20 years through forest gardens.

1 Forest Garden results in:

- 3,200 Trees planted.

- Increases income of farmers by 400% on average (continously).

- 1-2 acres regenerated land (majority are 1 acre).

- An additional 800 trees planted in the surrounding area on community or preservation land.

- A minimum of 12 marketable crop types.

Proper monitoring of the physical, biological, and chemical changes on a farmer's land (and of the farming family's health) throughout the program provides a high level of certainty that the Forest Garden Approach works. TFTF utilizes soil testing, carbon sequestration calculations, nutrition, aerial/ remote monitoring and NASA LIDAR scans. Learn more about their “Quantifying Integrated Impact” here.

All of these data represent a quantifiable expression of TFTF's focus on “ending hunger, ending poverty, ending deforestation.”

(To see Data Sheet Tab 1 click here)

TREES currently uses GIS and drone evaluation to collect robust data sets for 100% of Forest Gardens within the 4 year training. Beyond 4 years, TFTF randomly samples 10% of their Forest Gardens to assess overall progress on key metrics.

Technical Data Form (TDF):

This survey is conducted for 100% of Forest Gardens each year. It records GPS locations, physicalities of land (e.g. size), production (e.g. marketable products, number of trees onsite before and during, estimated tree cover percentage), and household socioeconomic data (e.g. family size, baseline income).

Sample Survey:

A sample size is selected for a 95% (+/-5%) confidence level.

Using ArcGIS and GPS points, families are randomly selected from each project for an in-depth survey, which covers four main areas:

- General demographics: family size, age, education levels, gender

- FAO Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS)

- FAO Household Food Insecurity Access Scale Survey

- Household resilience related to increase in income year-on-year during project

Annual Evaluation:

This tracks the sustainable land use practices farmers are using including: mulching, composting, Integrated pest management, live fencing, alley cropping, perma gardening, etc. This assists in increasing the CO2 offset numbers.

The Forest Garden approach addresses symptoms of hunger and poverty and base-level sustenance needs through root causes of ecological degradation. It's clear that the longevity and durability of the FGA leads to a sustained and fundamental solution.

A forest garden provides farmers with a source of income while reducing costs of living (food), creating a highly sustainable economic model that increases it's value year after year.

(To see Data Sheet Tab 4 regarding projected income for farmers click here.

Forest Gardens convert desert-like or monocropped land into verdant ecosystems, while regenerating the soil to be rich, healthy and organic.

This process transforms low-value land resources into high-value land resources naturally, with self-generating properties that increase in value with each year.

This doesn't prevent others uses for the land but dramatically increases the opportunities for what that land can do for local communities and wildlife.

Click here to see planting methodology

Click here to the Tree Species list

Forest Gardens weave seamlessly into the local agricultural economy and lifestyle, and are specifically focused on providing tools and training that integrate into the pre-existing agricultural norms.

At this current time the programs are not in areas where indigenous tribes exist. All farmers in the program are local to the region.

Forest Gardens result in continuously enriched soil, increasing biodiversity and a resilient solution to hunger and poverty for the families who apply the FGA. The solution also makes the land more resilient to climate change. The positive benefits provided by this solution make it resilient against extractive threats. Trees for the Future is true to its name!

Since applying the FGA in 2014, the only reported unintended consequences have been rare tension between farmers who may not like the presence of a Forest Garden bordering their property. The impact of this is considered extremely low.

It's DDC's opinion that the risk of unintended positive consequences is far higher than the risk of unintended negative consequences.

When we consider what else could be done with the land, we have not identified any other approach that would be clearly superior for carbon removal. 

The two tradeoffs that we have identified are both minimal:

• For fertilization and pest control, the FGA uses natural and organic techniques rather than industrial approaches like chemical fertilizer and pesticides.  This is better for people and planet in the long run, but it requires farmers to be masterful — they need to be experts of the technique. If the standards for farmer education and support dropped as the organization scaled, farmers might struggle to control pests and get maximum yields from the farms.

• Some experts argue for the benefits of massive agriculture, and its ability to feed millions of people at scale as the population grows and the climate becomes increasingly unstable. However, we believe that TFTF's approach will actually allow for that same scale without centralization, if they can replicate fast enough. 

Generating 1,000,000 Forest Gardens in sub-saharan Africa by 2030 would effectively uplift 2 million people from extreme hunger, while providing myriad ecological, economic and social cascading benefits.

Alleviating systemic hunger and poverty has proven difficult despite modern civilisation's advances. Scalable and cost-effective solutions to alleviating climate change and the degeneration of soil have also proven equally difficult.

The Forest Garden approach is designed to alleviate the root cause of environmental degradation, poverty, and hunger by applying agroforestry and permaculture techniques.

Trees for the Future's real innovation is how effectively they empower local communities to leverage nature's technology to solve complex challenges.

Click here to see the TFTF planting methodology.

Trees for the Future's Forest Garden solution directly addresses many of the most pressing global issues of our time. See “top-level issues” identified by the United Nations. Most notably:

- Africa: Poverty, desertification, malnutrition

- Agriculture: Food Security, Sustainable agriculture

- Development: Social transformation, Economic development

- Environment: pollution, deforestation, desertification.

- Food: Missing food security and safety, world hunger.

- Health: Extreme poverty.

- Women: Women's rights, gender equality.

Extreme hunger, extreme poverty and climate change are an immediate threat to the wellbeing of all.

Reference 1

Reference 2

Note this list of what millenials identify as the world's most pressing issues. (1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10). Click here.