How we work
Planting Moringa
Planting Moringa requires good preparation and hard work, particularly in harsh environments. Before planting the trees, the land needs to be fenced off in order to prevent cattle from roaming in and eating the young trees. Once fenced, the land is prepared by digging holes which are evenly spaced out and filled with compost. Each tree is grown individually from a seed, initially in a nursery and then transferred to the plot on the land. We plant during the wet season in order to reduce the amount of water needed for the plants root system to develop, but we also have a pump and a water tank to storage and irrigate the cuttings during the dry season. Each Moringa Tree costs approximately 1 USD to plant and offsets approximately 5 kg of CO2 per year right from the start.
cO2 CAPTURING
Moringa captures more carbon than an average tree and as the tree grows it is expected to absorb more and more CO2 each year. According to our calculations, each Moringa tree is expected to sequester 5kg of C02 annually.
Desertification
In the Sahel region, desertification is a real issue that became apparent as a result of lack of rainfall, overgrazing and deforestation. The effects are strongly felt by more than 200 million people living within this region; lack of crops and income results in an ever more impoverished population at a greater than ever risk of famine. Moringa oleifera has a an extensive root system and losses its leaves during the dry season to reduce evapotranspiration, hence using water more effectively. It requires low nitrogen inputs and therefore it’s a tree that can be used in water and soil conservation strategies.
mALNUTRITION
Moringa oleifera is a great source of nutrition: dried leaves can be used in cooking and they have a high content of iron, calcium, protein, potassium, and vitamins C/A. All of these nutrients are often found in reduced quantities (if at all) in foods typically consumed by these populations, but they are necessary for a healthy diet.
jobs
By planting a Moringa tree, you are not only creating a carbon cache, you are setting in motion the need for someone to dig a whole, plant a seed, water the tree, manicure it, harvest the leaves and seed pods, process it to eat or press for oil, sell the highly nutritive products at a local market, reinvest profits into planting more trees. Our Moringa project includes women in the transformation and marketing processes.
As you can imagine, this creates the need for many different types of work. These are jobs that pay well according to local standards (x 2 for producers and x 3 for technician) and are secure injecting capital into the local economy.
Donations
We are currently self-funded in this venture. Our primary goal was to offset the carbon emissions of our businesses, our family members and of ourselves as well as to have a positive environmental and economic local impact. Having nearly reached this goal, our next aim is to offset more than our emissions. The average Canadian, European and Burkinabè citizen generates 16, 8 and 0.2 tons of CO2 annually, respectively. By planting 3,000 and 1,500 Moringa trees, a Canadian and European citizen, respectively, can therefore offset their CO2 emissions for life. Our goal is to raise awareness of the impact of everybody’s carbon footprint. We do not currently accept donations.
Projected number of Trees planted by 2021
2018 - 2019 and beyond.
YEAR by YEAR GROWTH
Since November 2018 we have planted 10,000 Moringa Trees in two different sites (Toussiana and Darsalamy) each with 0.5 hectares. We currently have 20,000 additional trees that are germinating and will be planted into the ground starting May 2020. We have invested in creating a nursery to have more plantable trees available. We are also creating a partnership with local producers to fence 19 additional hectares of land which will allows us to plant more trees.
As of May 2021, 35000 moringa trees have been planted offsetting an estimated 175,000kg of co2 annually.