It’s been a very full and exciting couple of years at Inga Foundation. We’d like to say an enormous thank you to our supporters who have made everything you’ll read about here possible. You’ve brought us to where we are now – with 450 families under our wing, and leading a slow, quiet revolution in agroforestry that’s spreading organically by word of mouth. New and improved infrastructure on site is enabling us to do more training here, bringing the Inga Model to yet more farmers and organisations. Thank you!
A new space for accommodation and training
One of the biggest recent changes to our day-to-day operations is our superb new accommodation and teaching unit in Las Flores. It has been constructed from timber bought from our smallholding farmers and machined on site. It will enable us to host teams here and demonstrate the Inga Method, helping us to extend our teaching to agronomists, professional teams and organisations more widely, who can in turn teach others.
A major milestone: 450 families
Now in its twelfth year, our Land for Life Program has far surpassed all expectations. When it began, we hoped to extend it to 40 families each year and cease at around 200. However, the team never want to refuse a family’s request for help, and in response to unprecedented demand, we are now supporting over 450 families.
Back in 2012 when we began, the whole idea of planting and managing trees in this way in order to restore soil fertility and achieve food-security was seen as revolutionary, if not bizarre, by conservative subsistence farmers. They had to see and feel the living systems for themselves before they were convinced.
Over the 11 years of the program, Inga Foundation has built a reputation in the valleys and beyond as the only NGO to be trusted by the populace. This reflects the characters and integrity of our principal leaders and of the team that they have created. It also reflects the simple fact that Inga alley-cropping works; and has begun transforming lives and livelihoods.
According to our carbon model estimates, our Land for Life program will have avoided or sequestered 674,000 tonnes of CO2 by the end of 2022.
Welcome, to our new forester!
A warm welcome to our newly-recruited young Forester, Jarick Alejandro Reyes, a talented graduate who trained in Forestry at CURLA (La Ceiba). His main task is in extension work, compiling a data-base of all trees planted in any of the four agroforestry components of the Inga Model since 2012, including gathering geo-referenced pictures.
Abundance despite a third year of La Niña
This past year has been characterised by high rainfall and lack of prolonged sunny conditions. We have no indication as to whether this condition will prevail, or whether we shall see a neutral year before the next El Niño phenomenon kicks in. These climatic oscillations affect access within the valleys and, of course, they exert a profound effect on the well-being of the trees; especially through prolonged drought.
What we have seen these past few years has been nothing short of remarkable. Throughout prolonged droughts – some lasting eight months – our farmers have still managed to produce abundant harvests. We know that the Inga method improves soil structure, nutrient content and moisture, as well as providing it with shelter, often protecting it from the worst of violent climatic events.
Ways to support us
You can support our work by donating here. Every donation, however small, makes an enormous difference. Or, support us on social media by sharing our posts and telling your friends.