Insights from a Co-Creation Process

For the proposed project we will be collaborating with community-based organizations that supervise the farmers responsible for planting. These farmers are classified as “emerging farmers,” who operate on a scale between subsistence farming to large-scale agriculture, and engage in communal farming practices. Typically, they own between 10 and 300 hectares of land which are collectively managed with defined boundaries and necessary resources such as water for irrigation. Our strategy is to embrace crops that thrive in the area, promote sustainability, and align with the community’s preferences.

Lessons learned during this process:

1. Rural farmers have a global perspective, but lack access:
   The assumption is often that people in rural areas have no aspirations. We found that after explaining something new to these farmers, such as the concepts of carbon sequestration were quickly grasped as a concept that they were not just excited about, but ready to run with. Rural farmers are extremely keen to be involved but often lack access to new opportunities, resources, and management systems to scale their efforts.
2. Thinking in different time frames:
   A potential difficulty of dealing with projects like this is that farmers are often thinking in the here and now and may sometimes struggle to think long-term about processes and/or around the necessary requirements for very long term projects. Even though we showed them projected timelines there were still some communications issues around this that we had to ensure were properly understood, accepted and agreed upon.
3. Expectation management issues:
   Managing expectations requires an understanding of what the communities really need. Expectation management issues are more complex at the community level because you really have to communicate optimism with caution every step of the way. Often communities are really yearning for some development opportunity and they are ready to come to the table with their networks, their organizations, their land and their commitment to a project, and we want to be able to meet them there to facilitate access to the support and financing needed to ensure success.
4. Trust Networks to create a commercial force:
   One thing that we have learned going through the process is that the level of enthusiasm amongst individual farmers and their collective networks is important to create a structured association, while also fostering lasting trust with deep community and traditional council connections. If this is working then when an opportunity is offered, the community leaders can coalesce hundreds of farmers together to aggregate large areas of land.

   Benefits and Outcomes:

   

   Ultimately, what we realized is that these emerging farmers are a great potential commercial force who can grow marula, avocado and mango and other products at scale. They are potentially extremely positive and attractive commercial partners to the commercial industry along the entire value chain and we can help them co-create this.

   If we can get this right we can grow a lot of trees in the right way, with the added benefits of biodiversity, social and community impacts, and climate benefits. There is also the potential for the transformation of farming in Southern Africa where we can make a meaningful impact on South Africa’s desire for transformation at both the farmer and processing level, adding significant local value.

   We think that we can turn this into a really important success for emerging farmers and their related networks, and the work that we’ve done with Nature for Justice has helped us to realize this. We look forward to where we can go with this in the near future.