The Inga Foundation  is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to reducing the clearance of rainforest by slash and burn agriculture as practised in the tropics by desperate peasant farmers. The primary goal of the IF is empowerment and autonomy for these campesinos, to allow them to develop a productive holding which can not only sustain them nutritionally, but can lift them beyond mere subsistence level into a commercial strata by producing cash crops to enrich their lives materially.

And thus, the precious rainforest is saved. The reason the tropical rainforest is essential is due to its huge bio-diversity and role in carbon sequestration.

UK Registered Charity 1124688

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For some decades, researchers from the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge have been conducting basic research into the ecology of slash and burn subsistence agriculture in the context of the acid soils of the world's humid tropics; i.e. in the typical environment of the Tropical Rain Forest (TRF).  This project profile outlines the sustainable system of subsistence agriculture that has emerged from these years of research and development, and continues by outlining the work of the NGOs in Central and South America who are implementing these findings today.

The Genus Inga contains about 300 species in tropical America. They are thought to have evolved into so many species during the last 2 million years only. Artefacts in the shape of Inga seeds pods have been found in Peru and elsewhere dating back thousands of years. The tree is an important part of the local agro-economy. The fruit of many are edible and part of the basic diet of the indigenous pre-Columbian inhabitants of Peru. The tree has also been used as a shade tree for coffee, cacao and tea.

There are 10 main reasons why Inga were chosen by Mike Hands as the shade trees for successful alley-cropping:

Transforming rural livelihoods in place of slash and burn

Empirical evidence has accumulated over the life of the Cambridge Inga Projects, and continues to accumulate in the succeeding projects, that the alley-cropping techniques described here carry the potential for a fundamental transformation in the livelihoods of subsistence farmers and their families.  These transformations are much more fundamental than those implicit in the Green Revolution (GR) technologies of the 1960s and '70s.  Moreover, and more importantly, the technologies described here are characterised by the complete absence of external debt in their implementation. 

“The tropical equivalent of turning water into wine.”

THE INDEPENDENT

"The Inga Foundation has found a solution for some of the biggest environmental problems we face, and deserves global recognition and support." 

ZAC GOLDSMITH

“A groundbreaking way to stop vast areas of rainforest from being destroyed.”

THE ECOLOGIST

“Mike Hands -no 44 in top 100 contributors to ‘saving the planet.’”

THE GUARDIAN