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KOMAZA

Region/Community: Kilifi District, Kenya (with medium/long term plans to expand/replicate beyond Kilifi District)

Description: KOMAZA works to unlock the economic potential of tree farming to generate life-changing income for rural families living in absolute poverty. Millions of African families struggle to survive by farming traditional food crops ill suited to their dry semi-arid environments. With inadequate food yields and no cash income, these rural families are unable to attain the most basic assets and opportunities required for a secure and prosperous life. KOMAZA (Swahili for "promote development; encourage growth") generates unprecedented income for rural families by planting Eucalyptus as a high-value cash crop. Eucalyptus farming is a low-risk and high-profit investment, ideally suited to semi-arid environments. KOMAZA extends the total tree farming value chain to the poorest families by providing: farm inputs on credit, education for tree planting and maintenance, and complete value capture services (tree harvesting, value-adding processing, and output marketing). By providing fallow land and simple labor, families will receive increasing installments of total life-changing income, enabling diverse investments in comprehensive and catalytic life-improvements.

From Tevis: After high school I spent a gap year doing malaria research at the Kilifi District Hospital. I returned during summer and winter breaks while at Brown to continue my research. After spending 18 months living in Kilifi and doing literally thousands of hours of internet research at Brown, I came to understand the root cause of poverty in dry semi-arid agrarian communities to be a total lack of financial capital for families to invest in proven, comprehensive, and catalytic life improvements. I realized no organization was doing anything close to providing the substantial cash income for families to re-invest to climb out of absolute poverty. Eucalyptus farming could provide a profitable end to absolute rural poverty. So now I'm a tree farmer living in Kilifi District and loving every minute of it!