We work with the poorest of the poor: food insecure subsistence farmers at tropical forest margins in Central Africa. Most of the farming work in these communities is done by women. The families they manage belong to the "ultra-poor", that is, people trying to survive on less than $0.50 per day.

Our rural communities have been left behind by both policy makers, international aid organisations and their own governments. They face a whole series of adverse social, economic, political and environmental stresses that keep them in permanent food insecurity, ill health and abject poverty.

The peasants we work with do not have access to even the most basic agricultural inputs (quality seed, fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide)  nor to output markets. They are incapable of producing a food surplus. The result is mothers' permanent worries about whether they can put enough food on the table. Our communities face a hunger season each year. The social and health effects are catastrophic.

Because of a lack of access to inputs, knowledge and markets, our farmers are forced to rely on inefficient, labor-intensive and destructive land use techniques that yield little benefits. They practise a form of shifting cultivation based on "slash-and-burn" techniques, which barely allows them to survive.  The social, economic and health consequences for our communities are dire enough, but these land use systems also present a threat to tropical forests and unique ecosystems.

The Biochar Fund turns this "cycle of unsustainability" into one of prosperity and sustainability, with relative ease. Experts know hunger can be eradicated with even small interventions. We prove this. Experts know efficiency leaps in the way natural resources are managed are possible amongst these communities. This too, we prove. It is a fact that our farmers can empower themselves and overcome the conditions that keep them in abject poverty. They themselves prove it. And with the Biochar Fund, they can even turn their current land use practises into activities that offer great benefits to mankind: saving rainforests and tackling climate change. All they need to succeed is a starting point and a small investment.

The ultra-poor are worth investing in, not out of charitable or paternalistic reasons, but because it makes good economic sense. With the advent of a global transition towards recognising the economic value of ecosystem services, it becomes feasible to make our communities guardians of forests, biodiversity, fertile soils, carbon stocks and sustainable agriculture.

Concretely, we focus on rural communities at the frontier of a unique set of ecosystems found in the Congo River Basin rainforest - the world's second largest tropical forest zone. This biodiversity-rich forest stretches across six of the world's most underdeveloped, poor and food insecure countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), the Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon.

Please read more about our trial sites.

And check out the facts about hunger to learn more about hunger and its health consequences amongst our communities.