In southeastern Senegal, farming families are redefining what’s possible on degraded land. Once reliant on peanuts and millet monocropping, farmers are now transitioning to diverse agroforestry farms that restore ecosystems, improve nutrition, and provide steady income. Together with our planting partner and thanks to the support of our corporate partners, this project is transforming both landscapes and lives.

The LifeTree System: A Pathway Out of Poverty

The LifeTree system is the foundation of this transformation. As John Leary, CEO and Co-Founder of Mother Trees, explains: “It’s a pathway out of hunger and extreme poverty for smallholder farmers.”

It all starts with the living fence–rows of trees planted around a field that protect crops from roaming livestock, wild animals, and soil compaction. Without protection, farmers face devastating losses year after year. With it, families finally have the stability to invest in their land.

Inside the fence, families establish a diverse mix of crops and trees:

• Nitrogen-fixing species (like moringa and pigeon pea) that improve soil fertility.
• Fruit trees (mango, cashew, papaya, citrus) that provide food and income year-round.
• Permaculture gardens with vegetables and root crops that deliver nutrition and quick returns.

The results are profound. Instead of waiting a full year for a single, uncertain payday from peanuts, families are now harvesting and earning throughout the year.

Updates from the Field

During our most recent visit, we saw firsthand how farmers and cooperatives are working to help restore ecosystems.

Women’s Cooperatives Leading Change

In Gadagandiery, a women’s group manages 20,000 seedlings in their nursery, while in Daketeli, another cooperative of 60 women cares for 30,000 seedlings. These groups are not only planting trees but also running savings clubs: revolving funds that provide access to credit for transporting produce, buying equipment, or investing in water connections.

Living Fences & Forest Gardens

Established fields are already noticeably different: cooler, shaded, and buzzing with biodiversity. Farmers proudly showed us fences strong enough to keep out goats and cows, and forest gardens where fruit trees, vegetables, and grains grow side by side.

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Technology & Monitoring

Collecting reliable data in dispersed rural communities is no small feat. Farms are often scattered across villages, making transparency and monitoring both challenging and essential.

Building Transparency

Local technicians are trained on the veritree app, which allows them to document planting sessions, GPS-tagged photos, and walking paths both online and offline. From the first rows of the living fence to fruit trees planted in later phases, each step is recorded in detail. Through the app, farmers are also completing follow-up survival surveys at years one, two, and three that add another layer of accountability. This structured data collection makes it possible to aggregate thousands of individual farm records into one comprehensive picture of impact.

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Monitoring Biodiversity

To understand how ecosystems recover, we’ve installed bioacoustic sensors and trail cameras across these dispersed farms. These tools track species presence and diversity over time, helping measure changes as farms mature. We work closely with our planting partners as they frequently deploy more sensors in new regions, while offline data collection ensures monitoring continues even in areas with limited connectivity. This approach makes ecosystem recovery measurable and transparent at scale.

Tracking Social Impact

At this restoration project, veritree’s team conducts a series of social surveys to better understand and monitor the impact over time.

These surveys cover a variety of aspects, including household demographics and produce sold at market to track how livelihoods shift. The goal is to measure impact over years, not weeks, so we continue following farmers to see how conditions improve.

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Impact & Trajectory

More than a thousand families in Senegal have already replicated the LifeTree system, and many more are joining across the country. By shifting from peanut monocropping to growing a diverse mix of crops and trees, farmers can significantly increase their incomes. With better income, families can now invest in essentials like housing, carts, and motorcycles. Youth are staying in villages instead of migrating, inheriting farms full of fruit trees rather than barren plots.

With continued support, Senegal’s LifeTree system can scale into a movement that doesn’t just plant trees, but nurtures better futures.