- info@solucoesnaturais.org.br
Co-Innovation Journeys
GA co-organizes Co-Innovation Journeys to these successful Agroecology and Agroforestry approaches to inspire co-innovation and cooperation among farmers and other stakeholders.
Visiting some of the world’s most innovative models
GA and NOW Partners Foundation co-organizes with local and international partners Co-Innovation Journeys to successful Agroecology and Agroforestry approaches to inspire co-innovation and cooperation among farmers and other stakeholders. Below are several examples from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
CAMTA: Productive Forests in the Amazon
With NOW Partners Foundation, GA supported visits co-founder CAMTA, a 90 year-old cooperative in the Amazon whose Productive Forestry cultivation, includes SAF Dende, a regenerative Agroecology approach that grows Palm Oil in ways that are 30 – 40% more productive than the typical chemical monocropping. CAMTA’s multicropping approach was developed with Natura, Latin America’s largest beauty group and research institutes such as Brasil’s Embrapa. CAMTA further strengthens the income of its members by value addition and market access. NOW Partners Foundation is supporting it to develop Blended Finance investment projects to support its scaling.
Brasil’s NATIVE - Agroecology on 50.000 hectares
GA and NOW Partners Foundation co-led a Visionary Leadership Program for the top leaders of Triodos, Europe’s leading sustainable bank and investment firm. The highlight of the two-year program was a ten-day co-innovation journey to Brasil. It included an extended visit to the farms and value-addition facilities of Native that produced ⅓ of the world’s organic cane sugar on 50,000 hectares that are richer in biodiversity than the surrounding forests. Native has 23 agroecological certifications, including ROC (Regenerative Organic Certification). It has significantly higher productivity than the most sophisticated conventional methods that use chemical inputs and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).
Natura - Productive Forests, supported by Latin America’s largest beauty group
GA and NOW Partners Foundation co-led Co-innovation Journeys to its long-time partner, Natura, Latin America’s largest beauty group is one of the world’s most sustainable multinationals. For decades its innovations towards regenerative value creation have successfully integrated economic development and business success with the regeneration of social and natural systems.
In the Amazon, where Natura sources many ingredients, it closely collaborates with local communities ranging from indigenous peoples and the over 20 million Brasilian immigrants who will either find regenerative livelihoods or continue to burn the forest and pollute the environment as they struggle to feed their families.
Natura runs the region’s largest sustainable factory and helps local communities to develop village-based production facilities that help them produce oil and pastes from nuts, fruits and other raw materials that they used to sell without such profitable value addition. As a result, these local communities generate significantly higher incomes and profits from the ‘trees standing’ and also become more empowered participants in local, national and global economies in which they often are the least powerful part of the supply chains.
India’s APCNF: the world’s largest and fastest growing Agroecology approach
GA and its co-founder NOW Partners Foundation have organized numerous Co-innovation Journeys to its long-time partner the Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF), the world’s largest and fastest growing Agroecology approach that grew over the past 10 years from 40.000 to 1.5 million farmers. This chemical-free method outcompetes conventional chemical farming in all regards, including providing farmers with much higher incomes.
These visits lasted up to two weeks of intense field visits, mutual innovation exchange and hands-on application practice. They included farmers and the organizations, government representatives, researchers and academic, business and micro-finance leaders, investors and other stakeholders from countries such as Zambia, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Egypt, the UAE and the European Union. Even very successful agroecological farmers were impressed by APCNF’s integral approach, its continuous innovation and the capacity to scale that includes its 12000 farmer-coaches. Learn more about APCNF.
Egypt’s SEKEM, EOL Carbon Credits and Heliopolis
GA and NOW Partners Foundation supported Co-Innovation Journeys to Sekem that was founded 50 years ago in the Egyptian desert. Today it is the Middle East’s and North Africa’s (MENA) largest regenerative farm and farmer network. Its companies’ value add products include food, pharmaceuticals, apparel, furniture. It primarily focuses on the Egyptian market where its organic food products sell intentionally for the price of conventional products because Sekem believes that healthy food should not be a luxury. Its products are widely available in Europe.
Sekem also founded the MENA region’s largest sustainable development university, called Heliopolis whose faculties include agriculture, forestry and economic capacity building. Its Economy of Love (EOL) regenerative carbon credit have supported thousands of farmers to greatly improve their income by switching from chemical to agroecological cultivation and renewable energy.
Zambia: GA Hubs for Co-Innovation, Capacity-building, Implementation
GA and its co-founder NOW Partners Foundation have organized numerous Co-innovation Journeys to Zambia, where they successfully co-created three GA Hubs for Co-Innovation, Capacity Building and Implementation in collaboration with Zambia’s Ministry of Agriculture, local farmers and Valponasca Learning Farm of the Salesian Sisters and the Jesuit’s Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre as well as other civil society and private sector stakeholders.
The Hubs pioneered the co-innovation between local practices and India‘s Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF). The farmers involved already achieved significantly higher yields at much lower costs and enabled cultivation during the dry seasons when most farmers typically stop cultivation.
The innovations include the shift from monocrops to multi-cropping, which ensures that farmers and their communities benefit from high quality nutrition at low cost, while also increasing their incomes from cash crops. The locally adapted cultivation methodology, along with capacity building in value addition, market access, finance and management training are being integrated into the core curriculum of Zambia’s national agriculture college system that serves 5,000 practitioners yearly.
- Scaling Regenerative Solutions
