Category: Agro-Tech

Kathmandu April 22, Tansforming the asaí value chain in Bolivia through traditional methods and modern ingenuity
The asaí palm is worth more than its trendy, health-promoting berries. These trees are a precious natural resource that sustains the Porvenir Indigenous Peoples’ community in northern Bolivia. Photo: Creative Commons Public Domain/ Márcia do Carmo – MTUR
20/03/2025
In the heart of the Porvenir Indigenous Peoples’ community in northern Bolivia, ancient forest health secrets meet modern ingenuity. One of these secrets is the asaí palm (Euterpe precatoria).
Thanks to its luscious berries, the asaí’s international popularity has skyrocketed in recent decades.
On the global market, the asaí berry is widely promoted as a superfood, brimming with antioxidants that boost the immune system, protect cellular integrity and alleviate inflammation. With images of these dark purple berries atop salads and yogurts or blended into smoothies, asaí fruits are also associated with cardiovascular health benefits, including lowering cholesterol and regulating blood pressure, as well as claims of weight loss and energy enhancement.
However, for the Porvenir Indigenous Peoples’ community, the asaí palm is worth so much more than its fruits’ nutritional and health benefits. These trees are a precious natural resource that sustains their livelihoods and their environments.
Before 2009, the Porvenir Indigenous Peoples’ community harvested the asaí palm by chopping down entire trees for their fibrous cores, which were processed and sold as heart of palm.
Today, with financial and technical support from the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Indigenous Peoples’ community of Porvenir has transitioned to a sustainable asaí value chain.
The community established the Association of Forest Producers, focused on artisanal and small-scale production that respects forest resources and revives Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge about the health benefits of the asaí berry. Since 2022, support from the FFF has helped to increase production by providing new equipment and improving and expanding a processing plant.
FAO’s Forest and Farm Facility is helping the Indigenous Peoples’ community of Porvenir to develop a sustainable asaí value chain, boosting production and food and nutrition security whilst conserving forest resources.
Developing an asaí value chain
“The first few years were tough; we didn’t sell a single gram of asaí in the first year,” recalls Rólvis Pérez, administrator of the Porvenir Forest Producers’ Association.
Then slowly the community started reaping results, with asaí production increasing from 50 tons of pulp per harvest a decade ago to over 100 tons today.
Now, thanks to asaí berry production, the community has eliminated the need to cut down palm trees, protecting both the species and their future earnings.
“People started believing in this because they started receiving their earnings, improving their living conditions,” says Lisandro Saucedo, the Association’s former leader. “They have seen that if they preserve this resource, it also guarantees jobs in the community. They have taken ownership of the resource and even when palm companies have tried to work with them again, they have said no.”
Building on the success of the asaí value chain, the Indigenous Peoples’ community is now exploring the untapped potential of other trees and non-timber natural resources.
Building on the success of the asaí value chain and with FFF’s technical support, the Indigenous Peoples’ community is now exploring the untapped potential of other trees and non-timber natural resources as a way to diversify the bioeconomy, while applying their Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and traditions.
For instance, now when harvesting from another important tree, the moriche palm or burity (Mauritia flexuosa), the community climbs
the palm tree to collect the fruit instead of felling the tree. The pulp is then processed into juice and oil, which can be integrated into cosmetics such as body oils, lip balms and creams.
The community is also maximizing the use of non-timber natural resources by converting residues from asaí and moriche palm fruits into high-caloric charcoal briquettes.
Significantly, with support from its partners, the Association last year secured Forest Stewardship Council certification for its non-timber forest products and obtained the wild harvest and organic certification from Ceres Germany.
To bolster the growing circular economy, a new solar-powered integrated processing plant is being built to handle fruit, pulp, flour and oil. The plant will have addiContinue page 28
The cultivation ……..tional capacity to refine asaí shells for compost, with the wastewater used for irrigation.
“This is what we need to ensure employment in the community while also making sure that everything we do is sustainable, not only for Porvenir’s residents but also for visitors and even people from other countries,” says Lisandro.
Harmony and pride
By enhancing asaí harvesting and management to meet local and global demand, the Porvenir Indigenous Peoples’ community, with the FFF’s support, is demonstrating how healthy and sustainable resources can also drive economic growth and improve livelihoods.
Beyond economic benefits, this transformation has strengthened a deep sense of pride and ownership over their land.
“Porvenir is my life and my beautiful community,” declares local asaí harvester Pedro Gutierrez. “It’s my beautiful town, the best life we have. Right now, we’re working, and we have everything.”

Kathmandu April 4, Soil is getting saltier – but African farmers are standing strong
Few plants thrive in soil with high levels of salt. Most crops start to wilt, even if they are watered well. Their growth is weak, their leaves drop and their yield is low. Alarmingly, an estimated 10 per cent of cropland worldwide is salt-affected, and this figure is rising.
While irrigation is a gamechanger for agriculture, its reckless use can lead to the overexploitation of aquifers, which can in turn make the groundwater salty. When small-scale farmers use this groundwater for further irrigation, the salts may be deposited in the soil. Improperly drained soils can also accumulate salts.
To make matters worse, rising sea levels carry salt to soils and aquifers, worsening droughts prevent it from being washed away and increased heat leads to more groundwater being extracted for irrigation and other uses.
In the countries most affected by cropland salinity, FAO has estimated up to 72 per cent losses for rice, 68 per cent for beans and 37 per cent for maize. This has severe implications for food security, especially in communities already experiencing fragility.
That’s why RESADE, a recently completed project funded by IFAD and implemented by the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, aimed to build resilience to salinity among small-scale farmers in western and southern Africa. Working with agricultural research institutes in seven countries, the project introduced innovative approaches to increase agricultural productivity, build food security and boost economic returns to enable farmers to leave poverty behind.
Agricultural productivity: Conditioning soils in The Gambia
Through RESADE-supported farmer field schools across western and southern Africa, farmers have learned to use low-cost, locally produced units that heat farm waste in a low-oxygen environment for up to a day. This creates biochar, a stable form of carbon that is then applied to the soil to condition it and protect it from degradation.
Enriching soil with biochar not only sequesters carbon, but also helps the soil retain water and nutrients and makes crops more tolerant to irrigation with saline water. In The Gambia, biochar increased the germination rate of sorghum irrigated with slightly saline water by 25 per cent and pearl millet by 62.5 per cent.
Food security: New crops for couscous in Togo
Couscous is part of the daily diet for many Togolese, but the rising cost of wheat imports is putting this beloved staple out of reach for many households. That’s why, with support from RESADE, farmers have learned to make couscous from sorghum, building their food security and reducing their exposure to market fluctuations.
Emefa and Adjo serve sorghum couscous they prepared in Togo.
Sorghum is a new crop for farmers in Atti-Apédokoè in southwestern Togo, but they can already see the benefits. Longer periods of drought and higher temperatures have dramatically reduced maize and wheat yields.
By contrast, sorghum is a tough cereal that needs little water and can withstand heat. It’s also more salt-tolerant than maize. It can be used for fodder, fermented to make beer or ground into flour. As an ingredient to make couscous, it fits easily into local diets.
Sorghum is one of several nutritious, drought-tolerant crops that RESADE introduced across the project countries. The project has established six community-based seed banks so that farmers can access these new varieties and learn how to use them.
Emefa, a farmer who attended the session on making sorghum couscous, is looking forward to planting the crop in her field. “After making couscous from it, we see that it can be a good alternative to wheat and can help us increase our family income,” she says.
Economic returns: Juicing jackpot in Botswana
RESADE also worked with com
munities to explore new ways of processing the foods they grow, adding value to them, marketing them effectively and increasing income.
One of these foods is lerotse, a native watermelon of Botswana, which drinks up water when it rains, then fruits and flowers when the weather is dry. But as droughts become more frequent, many Soil is getting saltierfarmers have a surplus of lerotse and often let them rot in the fields.
Thanks to RESADE, lerotse is now providing a valuable income stream for farmers like Masego in salt-affected areas. During a RESADE training, she discovered that lerotse is more than just a cooking melon – it can also be used to make a tasty juice. She learned how to obtain food production licences and nutritional analyses, then registered her company, Makaba Lerotse Juice Product.
Masego’s small business now sells juice to event organizers, earning up to 10,250 pula (US$750) a month. She has hired two assistants to keep up with demand, and she is optimistic about the future of her business. “I believe that Botswana will plant more melons now that a new market is available,” she says.