Thriving Communities, Healthy Landscapes
We're helping more than two million farmers embrace more sustainable growing practices that can help build resilience to climate change and boost yields.
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Across the tropics, farming and forest communities face a daily struggle to cover life’s basic needs. Breaking the cycle of rural poverty—and tackling the ensuing impacts for people and nature—is critical for a more sustainable future for us all.
Rural poverty is at the root of many of our most pressing global challenges, from child labor and poor working conditions to deforestation for agricultural expansion. Economic desperation exacerbates these complex issues, which are deeply embedded in global supply chains. The result is a vicious cycle of environmental destruction and human suffering.
Our work to cultivate rural prosperity brings real, measurable benefits for farmers, forest communities and Indigenous peoples around the world.
earned by our Maya Biosphere Reserve community partners from 2013-2021*
The Rainforest Alliance has been working with the community forestry concessions in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve since 1999—helping to develop thriving forest enterprises based on the responsible harvesting and processing of non-timber forest products (such as nuts and palm fronds), in addition to timber for export, according to the rigorous standard of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
*2013-2021 earnings from 100+ small and medium-sized forest-based businesses in the community concessions of Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve.
on West African small-scale certified farms*
In 70 countries, farmers are trained in more sustainable practices that boost climate resilience, conserve biodiversity, and promote worker wellbeing—while also helping to increase productivity and improve their incomes. Learn more
*Three studies published in 2018-2020 reveal that income from cocoa production is 40% higher on average on Rainforest Alliance and UTZ Certified farms in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, compared to non-certified farms:
The Rainforest Alliance partners with frontline communities to build thriving rural economies rooted in more sustainable growing practices and forest stewardship. We also promote responsible business practices to ensure that companies recognize and reward sustainability transformation—in the field as well as the boardroom.
We're helping more than two million farmers embrace more sustainable growing practices that can help build resilience to climate change and boost yields.
To improve rural livelihoods, we foster deep collaboration between farmers, civil society organizations, companies, and governments.
The Rainforest Alliance believes that workers around the world should be paid enough money to provide a decent life for themselves and their families.
At the Rainforest Alliance, we believe in a shared responsibility approach that encourages companies to do their part in ensuring a living income for farmers. This is the basis of our initiatives, the Living Income Module and the Living Income Fund.
We used a systematic survey and assessment process to characterize the context, motivations, investments, outcomes, and participants of 191 initiatives using landscape approaches in Africa and Latin America.
In this paper, the authors develop an assessment tool to evaluate climate-smart landscape needs and opportunities in six key activity domains, then apply this tool in the agricultural landscape around Kericho, Kenya, an important tea-growing region where agriculture and ecosystem services are expected to be strongly affected by climate change.
In 2007, a farm in Kenya became the first tea producer to achieve Rainforest Alliance certification. Today, more than 659,000 farms—covering just over two million acres (830,000 hectares) in 17 countries—produce Rainforest Alliance Certified tea. And with commitments from Unilever, Taylors of Harrogate, Tata Global Beverages, and other prominent tea companies to source only Rainforest […]
An overview of scientific research examining the results of Rainforest Alliance coffee certification and training on ecosystems, livelihoods, and communities.
Smallholder tea farmers in Kenya are organized through the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), which works with farmers to produce, process and market high quality teas. KTDA promotes better tea production practices in order to help smallholder farmers increase production quantity and achieve certification–with the ultimate goal of strengthening existing tea markets and establishing new […]
Researchers commissioned by the Rainforest Alliance compared financial record keeping variables between Rainforest Alliance Certified farms and non-certified farms; they also surveyed social lenders and local, in-country financial institutions. The study established a common minimum set of metrics for producers to record/report in order to apply for credit, showed that certified producers are better at […]