How agroforestry can restore degraded lands and provide income in the Amazon

The Food and Agriculture Organization and the Slow Food Coffee Coalition are helping coffee farmers in Malawi adopt agroforestry practices by teaching them new techniques, helping them improve coffee quality, and showing them how to attract international markets. This way, the farmers earn more for their products and benefit the environment with their work.

The Kirinyaga county government is helping Kenyan farmers build fish ponds and supplying them with their first stock of fish and food in an effort to diversify their incomes while adding rainwater storage amid the drought.

In Brazil, 45% of agriculturally viable land is owned by 1% of tenants. To combat this inequitable ratio, the Landless Workers’ Movement formed and took a stand for seizing lands that are "not fulfilling a productive or social use." The group successfully reclaimed an area known as Mario Lago and has since begun a reforestation process alongside agroforestry which has allowed for an increase in diversity of food produced. The farmers haven't stopped there, however. To sell their produce, they have implemented a system of turning the consumer into a co-producer thus ensuring economic stability.

The Accion Fraterna Ecology Centre nonprofit works with over 60,000 farmers across 300,000 acres of land, supporting individual farmers to restore unproductive land across the entire region by using regenerative agriculture practices. Techniques include using natural fertilizers and planting crops alongside trees and other plans to prevent desertification.

Farmers in Ohio are implementing regenerative farming practices like growing pollinator plots and cover crops for improved soil health, increased yield, and economic benefits.

The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) preserves genetic diversity and breeds climate-resilient varieties of staple crops to improve livelihoods and strengthen food security — specifically in dry, climate-change-affected areas — by creating seed vaults. Through breeding programs over the past four decades, ICARDA has released more than 30 improved varieties of wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, and fava beans.

AppHarvest, a Kentucky-based indoor farming company, is providing jobs and agricultural training in an area that lacks employment opportunities.

In the U.S., a movement of Black farmers is trying to reclaim their legacy as agrarians. Only 1.7 percent of farms were run by Black farmers according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture. Black farmers are forming collectives, creating land trusts, creating conferences.

On his organic farm in Illinois, Will Glazik is experimenting with different types of agricultural methods to increase his crop yield while also avoiding the harmful impacts of industrial farming. He’s part of a growing movement called “sustainable intensification,” which combines both conventional and organic farming techniques. While there are challenges with this approach and what works in one place might not work in another, combining these types of farming could help feed a growing global population.

The Four Corners region in southwest Colorado has become home to nearly 500 varietals of apples, revitalizing the industry as a whole, thanks to the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project. The practice of researching and replicating apple varietals has spread to other areas of the state and has helped in promoting the concept of farm to table for both communities and businesses such as in the cider industry.