The farmers in Peru follow nature, working with the mountainous landscape. It’s a technique that gives farming families food from the very first year and crops and timber that can be sold in the future. The diagram below shows you how it works over the years.

1. There’s a bottom layer of quick growing crops like cassava that provide food for the first year.
2. Coffee beans from these second layer plants take about 4 years to mature and be ready to harvest.
3. Large leaves of the banana plants protect the delicate coffee bushes and provide food or a crop to sell.
4. Native inga trees produce edible seeds, shade for coffee plants and act as a soil conditioner.
5. Cedar, the tallest tree in the canopy, is planted for the long term, providing timber when it’s felled after 100 years.

Once the family had to survive on less than one pound a day – now Maria is growing her way out of poverty.

She’s seeing that layer farming is improving the quality of her coffee beans, and they will fetch a fair price when she sells them at market. As Maria’s hard work continues, her plot will carry on providing for her family, long after her children have grown up and have children of their own. ‘One day the trees we have planted will be taller than our children who will benefit from them too.’ 

£45 could buy 150 indigenous tree seedlings to replant the forest

£60 could buy 12 pairs of pruning shears to cut back vegetation

£100 could buy 400 high quality coffee seedlings

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