Forest Gardens in Tanzania

How the project works

Along the southern shores of Lake Victoria, in Tanzania's Simiyu and Mwanza regions, roughly 70% of rural households depend on the land for their livelihoods. Years of monocropping, overgrazing and increasingly erratic rains have degraded the soil, and each wet season washes more of it away, leaving families with eroding fields and shrinking harvests.

Trees for the Future works alongside smallholder farmers to turn these depleted plots into Forest Gardens through a four-year, hands-on training programme. Farmers plant thousands of trees as living fences and windbreaks, then layer diverse crops within - rebuilding a resilient, multi-storey system that protects and regenerates the soil.

A single-crop field becomes a garden of papaya, passion fruit, pigeon pea, tomato, eggplant, cabbage, okra, onion, leafy greens and more, growing among the trees. This diversity delivers a steady, year-round harvest of nutritious food instead of one seasonal crop that can fail.

Local project officers and experienced lead farmers provide continuous, field-based support - grafting workshops, tools such as rain barrels, compost guidance and regular farm visits - so techniques take root and spread from farmer to farmer across the community.

As soils recover, so do incomes. Farmers reach market more often with fuller baskets, some reporting several times the sales they made before. Restored land, reliable food and diversified income build lasting stability for families and ease pressure on the surrounding Lake Victoria watershed.

Across Simiyu and Mwanza the programme is bringing thousands of acres of degraded land back to life, improving biodiversity, water retention and climate resilience. Every tree planted helps rebuild a landscape - and a livelihood - from the ground up.