Value Proposition

Sustainable forestry delivers incredible profits to large companies, but the economic potential of trees has been out of reach for Africa’s poorest farmers.  Although most dryland farmers have plenty of surplus land and labor, they have not been able to unite the value chain required for profitable tree farming. That’s where KOMAZA comes in.

By bundling high-value trees with financial, training and marketing services, microforestry enables communities of farm families to accomplish what none could accomplish by working alone. Over ten years, a farmer earns more than $5,600 from a half acre of trees and one acre of short-term crops. Families earn this money through their own hard work and continue earning it as long as they maintain their farms. In this way, we replace charity with entrepreneurship.

We also retain a portion of each farm’s revenue to cover our costs and invest in new families. A single farm provides KOMAZA over $2,100 over ten years, representing an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 30 percent. This revenue is enough to set up nine new farms. After making an initial investment to achieve scale with our farmers, we aim to break-even and achieve self-funded growth by the end of the decade.

We plan to achieve complete financial sustainability, from individual farmers to our organization as a whole.