At the INGA Foundation we are working with local farmers to spearhead a grassroots revolution into the world’s rainforests. We are fighting to stop the devastating practice of slash and burn agriculture by providing farmers with a sustainable, organic and low cost alternative: Inga Alley Cropping.
Inga are fast-growing, nitrogen-fixing trees indigenous to the Amazon basin. The alley-cropping system enables farmers to grow their crops on the same plot of land year after year; it halts deforestation by breaking the destructive cycle of slash and burn; it improves the well being of local communities by helping families to become self sufficient in food and firewood; it generates a decent income from cash crops, and it does all this on land close to their home. In addition, the system promotes the long-term goal of reforestation and ecological biodiversity by linking up biological corridors for the threatened indigenous mammals and birds.