The landscape of East and Southern Africa is a stunning mosaic of diverse terrains and ecosystems. From the vast savannahs of the Serengeti and Maasai Mara to the towering, snow-capped peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya, breathtaking natural beauty abounds. In Southern Africa, the expansive Kalahari Desert, the lush Okavango Delta, and the rugged Drakensberg Mountains are critical to the region’s unparalleled biodiversity.
More frequent extreme weather has profoundly impacted rural farming communities. The region faces severe droughts and unpredictable rainfall patterns, which can devastate crop yields. Not only does this threaten food security and impair farmers’ abilities to make a living, but it also jeopardizes the vital biodiversity hotspots that these communities depend on.
Agriculture is the main source of income for many in East and Southern Africa, but unsustainable practices harm soil, forests, and biodiversity. Research shows that helping farming communities increase their incomes is crucial to forest conservation. We work in vulnerable landscapes to foster sustainable and regenerative solutions that benefit both people and nature.
Rainforest Alliance certification leads to many benefits for farmers and farm workers: higher wages, safer living and working conditions, better access to education for children, improved health, and more, including paid leave.
In Kenya, workers on certified farms were paid more regularly and received better accommodations, food, and clothing than workers on non-certified farms.1
1. Stathers et al. 2013, Ochieng et al. 2013, Lalitha et al. 2013
Rainforest Alliance certification increased the probability of forest conservation on coffee farms by 19.3 percent.
Studies show that certified coffee and cocoa farms have higher quality ecosystems1 and better habitat connectivity2 than non-certified farms.
1.Takahashi & Todo 2017, Haggar et al. 2017, Fenger et al. 2017, Rueda & Lambin 2013
2.Rueda et al. 2014, Hardt et al. 2015
In East and Southern Africa, we focus on regenerative agriculture to support farmers and protect their livelihoods for future generations. Our efforts also prioritize certification, landscape management, and community-led impact projects.
According to a United Nations report, approximately 12 million people in Kenya live on degraded land and food productivity has fallen behind the rate of population growth. This has resulted in farmland extending up the mountain and encroaching into protected forests.
In the coffee-producing highlands of Gusii, western Kenya, the Rainforest Alliance is working with smallholder farmers and local supply-chain actors to create healthy and productive farms, restore fragile ecosystems, and boost farmer incomes.
With the overarching goal of reducing child labor within coffee-farming communities, this project aims to create specific impacts within the partner communities—generating insights for other stakeholders to follow within their own contexts
Ethiopian coffee farmers take a sustainable approach to growing coffee. Yet, climate change is casting a gloom light on the sector's future.
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 […]
This evaluation provides evidence on the effectiveness, appropriateness and relevance of the tea certification program in Malawi. The effectiveness of the program was assessed based on the following evaluation questions: To what extent have the activities led to the planned outputs? To what extent have the objectives (outcome level) of the program been realised as […]
This independent evaluation compared the situation of certified tea farmers in Kenya between 2010 and 201 and took into account external factors which could also have influenced the outcomes. The certification program in Kenya aims to improve sustainability in the tea sector and supports smallholder tea farmers to implement better farming and management practices, by […]
Wageningen University evaluated different training models used by the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) to enhance sustainability of tea farming practices: Farmer Field Schools training (FFS) and Rainforest Alliance (RA) training and certification. Data was collected to track the impact of both training models on knowledge levels, implementation of GAPs, production, income and livelihood. This […]
Integrating Biological Conservation and Economic Development: Finding the Linkages in the Southeastern Rainforests of Madagascar In late 1991, Razafimamonjy, a plant ecologist with the National Center for Research on the Environment in Madagascar, and local residents near the Ranomafana National Park in southeastern Madagascar began working together to accomplish three broad objectives: to increase the […]... Continue Reading