Income for FarmersOnce smallholder farmers have planted macadamia trees they benefit financially as soon as the trees start bearing fruit by selling portions of the harvested crop. This can happen within 2 to 4 years depending on the conditions and care that young trees are under.
NMT has built a funding mechanism for macadamia smallholder farmers by connecting the trees planted (which absorb CO2) with the CO2 emitted by CDMC purchasers in developed countries.
The funding mechanism combines food security directly with carbon offsetting. This protects the carbon offsetting from becoming green-washing, because the offsetting is only equally important as the actual food production and security that comes from the nut harvest from the CO2 sequestering trees. The smallholders directly benefit from the food security while the CDMC purchaser benefits from the CO2 offset.
The work is done in partnership with Profs Who Fly, based in the UK which enables academics who travel by air regularly to purchase Carbon Damage Mitigation Certificates to offset the carbon emissions of their flights by directly funding the planting of macadamia trees by smallholders in Malawi.
Individual purchasers can also purchase CDMC's using the NMT Carbon Calculator also accessed via the Profs Who Fly site.
The long-term benefits provide carbon offsetting in developed countries which can then finance further smallholder agroforestry in Malawi. The increase of smallholder agroforestry in Malawi will improve the people's resilience to events such as the recent flooding that resulted from the March 2019 Cyclone Idai.