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In pictures: our farm and the people dedicated to the rainforest

In March, Berlin ‘Up in Smoke’ filmmaker Adam Wakeling visited Inga Foundation’s farm in Honduras – and here is his photographic tour, captured through an iPhone lens while shooting on location.

This is Luis, Inga Foundation’s chief Agronomist responsible for operations in the Cangrejal Valley catchment. This shot was, captured during a pause between visiting farmers, along with his fellow agronomist Alejandro (below left). Luis built himself a small house in the valley, a place to rest and recuperate, which his daughter Maria Jose (below right) can’t get enough of. It’s easier to stay here, rather than getting down the mountain into the city where he lives with his family, a journey of well over an hour depending on the state of the roads. Alejandro, another agronomist works alongside him.

The endless task of checking in on, and supporting farmers – practically and morally – is how Luis and Abraham spend most of their time. They’ll check how the trees, crops and soil are doing – they’ll deliver saplings where they’re needed – and they offer technical advice on how and where to plant them.

Above (middle) is Inga Foundation’s Director Mike Hands with Abraham Martinez, preparing organic black pepper harvested from just a few mature plants on Inga Foundation’s demonstration farm in the Cuero River catchment alongside Pico Bonito National Park. Pepper vines, grown on ‘tutor trees’ have grown huge, and the farm has well over 30 of them – grown alongside vanilla, cacao and bananas to demonstrate the true variety of crops grown within alley cropping works to visiting farmers, researchers and organisations.

First, the harvested green pepper is placed into a black sack in an enormous cooking pot filled with water. The pepper is cooked for a few minutes at around 80 degrees – not easy to measure over a wood fire! – and this will speed up the drying process. The sack is taken out, the pepper drained, stripped from the stalks and laid out to dry in the sun.

It really was one hell of a lot of dry pepper, fruity and with a real kick – about 12 pounds’ worth. I got a whole bag – so I’ll have that pepper probably as long as I live. I’ve been giving it away to everyone I know but I still can’t get rid of it.

On the left: Don Manuel, in Los Limpios standing next to his successful maize crop using the Inga system. This is after two months of drought, the maize drawing all its water from beneath the inga mulch.

On the right: Don Manuel also planted a comparison crop, not using the Inga system. No maize cobs, and these plants were half the size of his Inga maize – the same result all other farmers had, hence they are now clamouring to learn Inga Alley Cropping.

This chicken took a real liking to me during an interview. It got into the camera bag and was climbing all over me – so I got someone to pass me my phone to capture him, looking at me looking at him.

5:30am in the San Juan River Catchment, on the bridge that leads to the Inga Foundation. I slept in the Inga Foundation unit, and was up early for the best light to film on the farm. There was no end to the birdsong.

Before and after! This is Martín Garcia hugging a timber tree that’s going to change his life. Martin was one of Inga Foundation’s earliest farmers and when we met him he was earning 6 dollars a day working on someone else’s farm as a labourer. Inga Foundation has completely turned his life around.

The second picture was taken in November 2021, and you can see how this black laurel (Cordia) has grown in a couple of years – he can’t even get his arms around it!  Inga Foundation gave him this tree as a sapling 10 years ago, and in another 10 years he’ll be able to chop it down to sell the timber. These tropical hardwood timber trees can be sold for a considerable amount of money, and just one will provide a good pension for farmers – Martín has 100-150 of them. 

Because of the trees Martín has planted, he has plentiful water, where all his neighbours’ land had dried up. Birds have returned to the valley and Martín is able to show the children what he saw as a child: the amazing biodiversity of birds which have left many of his neighbours’ plots. With his newfound income, Martín was also able to build his daughter and her children a house on the land.