The Cameroon Project

We are urgently fund raising to buy Gaston Bityo, our Cameroon partner, a vehicle (see below for more information). Here is the truck that needs to be pieced together.

Please donate whatever you can afford. Thank you!

We will fill the Inga dream truck with Inga as the money comes in. 

Needed £9000 to purchase a decent, used vehicle,  but if we get half way we have a good chance of bigger contributions.

Our Cameroon partner, Gaston Bityo Delor, has drawn up plans to create 2 large Inga nurseries, one on his own land in his home village of Bizang, and the other at Ambam, where there are also Inga trees for seed. These will enabled him to supply very many farmers over the coming months and years. But not without a good means of transport!

Read  the newsletters 'Cameroon Inga Project Part 1'  and  'Cameroon Inga Project Part 2'  by Gaston Bityo in his own words.

Location of Cameroon in Africa

Cameroon lies just North of the equator in West Africa.  There is still a good bit of rainforest left, and slash and burn farming is common. Indeed, our partner there, Gaston Bityo, says that none of them, not even he himself, knew any other ways of farming until he came across the Rainforest Saver website and learned about Inga alley cropping.

Fortunately there was a mature Inga tree near where Gaston lives and he was able to get seed.  Then he found some more Inga trees in the South of Cameroon.  So he has been growing the seedlings, established a seed orchard, taught a group of 20 farmers about the system and has distributed seedlings initially to 10 of them. The other had a long wait. because though the system is easy and 

Inga class with adult farmers, and staff meeting with people selected to start Inga alley cropping in their different areas in Cameroon (Photos copyright © Gaston Bityo 2010)

inexpensive it does take a little money to get started.   We have just been able to supply a little more so 17 have now got their Inga plots started. In January (2011) Gaston also went to a national agricultural conference where many people came to his stand and now there are over 400 more farmers in Cameroon all interested in the Inga system.

No one could have worked harder than Gaston. He has been getting the seed and growing the seedlings and now has a good supply. But hiring a vehicle to take them to the farmers is very expensive, and taking the seedlings by bus is difficult, and also costs. Yes, indeed, Gaston has even resorted to carting substantial batches of seedlings by bus and motorcycle (not his own, he has no vehicle of any sort) to the farmers. That's real dedication, and frankly we don't know how he managed it, but he did.

Cameroon road, and batch of Inga seedlings on a motorbike. (Copyright © Gaston Bityo 2010)

So what Gaston needs is a truck, and Rainforest Saver is now fund raising to buy him one.  He can get a decent second hand one for £9000. The farmers are waiting, the seedlings are growing and need planted out before they are too big, and in time to catch the rains. We need to raise this money urgently.

Please donate whatever you can afford.  

We estimated previously that it cost £185 on average for Gaston to get each farmer started with Inga. Once the truck is bought the cost per farmer would be much less, and Gaston's 5 year plan for the further promotion of Inga throughout a lot of Cameroon would also become possible.

A truck would be much better than a car because Cameroon roads are not good and a car would not stand up well to the wear. Also more seedlings can be transported in a truck, though when you consider what they managed to transport by bus and motorcycle, they could transport a great many in a car. But if we manage to raise only half the money Gaston, ever resourceful, says he can get a reasonably good second hand car, and he will make it last by driving only in the dry season.  Ideally one would deliver the seedlings at the start of the rains, but he knows pretty well when the rains are due, so he would deliver them a couple of weeks before the rains and the farmers would have to water them till the rains came. They are all starting with small plots, so though watering would be time consuming and difficult (they don't have taps and garden hoses handy!), it would be possible.

Widow and her child carrying their precious Inga seedlings. (Photo copyright © Gaston Bityo 2010)

These first farmer plots will form nuclei from which the technique will be spread. So not only will that farmer improve his own family's life, but many more can benefit. And each time a farmer starts Inga alley cropping instead of burning the forest an area of rainforest is saved, not for one year but year after year. 

So please give us whatever donation you can afford.  Be it much or little we, Gaston and the farmers will be very grateful.