ERA's W+ Pollen Program empowers women smallholder farmers in the Cerrado through capacity building and training in regenerative agriculture.
​RESEARCH
COURSES & TRAINNING
AGROFORESTRY
GENDER EQUALITY
BIODIVERSITY
These are the 5 special ingredients that make this project unique.
A little video about our work
Biodiversity is the foundation of a resilient ecosystem. ERA devotes carbon revenues to the monitoring of keystone species within the Cerrado biome. Activities include scientific research to understand the health of specific communities and partnerships with leading institutions to achieve these results.
Agroforestry systems are biodiverse food production systems that integrate a variety of tree and plant species to produce fruits, nuts, superfoods and spices. Agroforestry systems produce more food per hectare than regular monocropping systems as well as yield higher financial returns per hectare in the long-run.
education
ERA believes in building a strong foundation through education and capacity building of the next generation of farmers. There is a lack of extension agents with the technical capacity to implement, manage and monitor agroforestry systems. Agriculture schools do not include agroforestry systems in the curriculum. Therefore, ERA is partnering with Family Agriculture Schools, to build agroforestry learning hubs and offering hand-on training courses.
biodiversity
agroforestry
gender equality
ERA is integrating the gender equality agenda into all projects through applying the W+ standard. ERA believes that the path to a more sustainable future is through women’s empowerment, which is why we have implemented the W+ standard into our Pollen Program. The W+ standard measures women’s empowerment through it’s transparent and quantifiable methods which give monetary value to results which then funnel back to the women involved in the project.
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The project aims to increase resilience through regenerative agriculture, supporting the creation of groups and cooperatives in three areas: offering education, capacity building and implementing agroforestry systems. The project aims to increase 3 domains including: Leadership, Income & Assets, and Knowledge & Education, which will benefit all the participating women.
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Through our W+ Program, ERA intends to positively impact the lives over 1,500 women by 2026.
research
ERA devotes a portion of carbon revenues to support cutting edge research on fauna, flora and water quality in the Cerrado.
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ERA partnered with the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT) to analyze soil health and soil carbon among different land-uses such as agroforestry, native vegetation and degraded pasture, to compartively measure the benefits of regenerative agriculture techniques as well as native vegetation conservation.
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ERA also implemented an agroforestry Learning Hub at the Federal University of Tocantins so students could have hand-on experience with a productive agroforestry system as well as perform necessary research on these regenerative agricultural management systems and their potential to positively impact communities, biodiversity, soil and water.
Where is the program at today?
Every successful program has a strong foundation.
01
Our team trained more than 32 young people in 4 courses on agroforestry management techniques​.
02
Our team, together with over 40 students and professors from the Family Agriculture School (EFA) in Porto Nacional, planted a 1 hectare (10,000 m2) agroforestry system in 5 days. The species planted include turmeric, baru, banana, among others.
03
Our team selected 8 students from EFA to receive their own mini-agroforestry system at their families property. We planted 3,740 m2 total, roughly 500 m2 per student.