India - Intellecap

In Jharkhand, a state in eastern India, high rural poverty, food insecurity, and malnourishment are unfortunately common. Literacy rates are low, and climate change presents an enormous challenge to smallholder farmers who have traditionally relied on monoculture: increased temperatures, reduced water availability, and low productivity all contribute to more than 10% of Jharkhand’s households facing seasonal food insecurity.

Together with Intellecap, Acorn aims to empower smallholder farmers to adopt agroforestry. Increasing their income from products such as mango, guava, and lime as well through carbon credits, making the existing land more productive after it was left fallow due to lack of resources and adverse climatic conditions, and overcoming malnourishment of the tribal population due to non-diversified and mostly carbohydrate-based diets.

The project aims to greatly increase the income status of farmer households by 100-150% from their existing income, mainly through the income realization from sale of the tree fruit and the realization of the carbon credit sale proceeds.

Full project documentation available upon request.