The HappyFarm Journey: Promoting and Facilitating Sustainable Farming Techniques in Gambia

By Lorraine Kinnear

Carbon markets for agriculture have expanded significantly over the years, providing farmers with more opportunities than ever before. Low carbon farming employs practices that are not only good for the soil and bring new income to the farm but are also good for the climate and all inhabitants of the planet.

Crop cultivation generates a lot of emissions, which are caused by practices like using chemical inputs or deep tillage. Agriculture is estimated to be responsible for 10-24% of global carbon emissions. While it may appear to be a large task, feeding the world is a huge responsibility.

However, there is always room for improvement, particularly when it comes to solutions that benefit farm income and the environment. This is where carbon farming and HappyFarm come into play. HappyFarm has a sole mission to regenerate degraded land for a climate-resilient future. The organisation does this by teaching smallholder farmers sustainable farming techniques that will link them to carbon finance. Leading our conversation around Happy Farm’s revolutionary and noble work is Fatoumata Njie.

Fatoumata is the Marketing Manager and Co-Founder of HappyFarm. She is currently under a Development and Environmental studies programme. Fatoumata has received several accolades and recognitions such as Young Entrepreneur of the year award 2021, issued by

Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), as well as Best Female Exhibitor at the 17th OIC Trade Fair in Dakar, issued by Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

TRC: Briefly tell us about HappyFarm – from your point of view, being core lead in the Gambia (both as Marketing Manager and Co-founder)

FN: HappyFarm is an eLearning app to teach smallholder farmers sustainable farming techniques and to connect them to carbon finance. The techniques we promote and facilitate help farmers restore degraded soils at scale, increase their crop yields, improve biodiversity, and provide local economic opportunities so that the young generation has a viable alternative to moving into bigger cities or leaving their home countries, which has been a big challenge in the past, especially in The Gambia. At the same time, global companies can use HappyFarm to offset their CO2 emissions.

HappyFarm pursues a bottom-up philosophy. We aim to spread these techniques from farmer to farmer and with the help of community ambassadors who can earn a substantial income from HappyFarm. We aim to do this at a fraction of the cost of traditional (e.g., centrally managed) projects.

The first method we promote and facilitate is Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). With FMNR, farmers regrow existing shrubs and tree stumps in their farmland into trees and then in- tegrate these trees with crops. Many trees are nitrogen-fixing, e.g., they make the soil around them very fertile, which benefits crop yields around them. However, they also improve the hydrology of the farm and reduce the effects of droughts, erosion, and wind. On a regional level, more trees can even increase annual rainfall.

TRC: What are the organisation's core mission and values, and how do these help drive the work on the ground?

FN: Our mission is to promote and facilitate sustainable farming techniques. HappyFarm is committed to environmental and biodiversity improvements towards a sustainable future that strengthens the livelihoods of farming communities.

Our core values are Transparency, Commitment, Inclusiveness, and a Bottom-Up approach.

Transparency helps us build trust in an environment where it is rare, and people are used to being exploited. In our app, every participant can see how much money the others are supposed to receive, and which ambassador is carrying the money for them. This total transparency strengthens the integrity of our system.

Commitment helps us signal to the farmers that we mean it. We initially pay farmers a small sign-up bonus to demonstrate our seriousness, and we commit to them over several years. But we do not make unrealistic promises to please them in the short term.

Inclusiveness helps us reach as many farmers as possible. In

The Gambia, the learning videos in the app are shown in four different local languages (Wolof, Fula, Mandinka, Soninke). Bottom-Up means that a single community can use our app alone and that it can spread from farmer to farmer. Traditional projects often reach their financial and organizational limits when extending to a few thousand hectares. HappyFarm is designed to start small but to grow exponentially.

TRC: Please detail the pilot currently running in the Gambia, techniques, models, research, and results recorded so far.

FN: In May 2022, we started paying money to farmers if they introduced FMNR on their farmland. The average size per farm is roughly one hectare, and farmers are required to regrow 40 shrubs per hectare. Forty shrubs per hectare are the recommended number for FMNR in farmlands. As of this date, 124 farmers are in our pilot.

In the first villages, we offered farmers a high price to start FMNR. Farmers received a much lower price in the last villages but were equally excited to sign up. We learned that even little money motivates farmers to start something. The challenge is to keep them engaged over the years until they see first-hand the benefits of the interventions in their farms so that they maintain the techniques even if the money stops. In the next phase of our pilot, we will evaluate different approaches to stimulate constant engagement among the farmers.

Ultimately, we will introduce other sustainable techniques to the farmers, such as no-tillage, mulching, planting pits, and composting. All techniques we promote and facilitate must benefit each other, make applying each other easier, and work without little to no external physical inputs, as this is where a digital platform like HappyFarm can have the most significant impact.

We have decided to run our pilot in The Gambia because of its small size. The Gambia is not a member of big land restoration initiatives like AFR100. Many development agencies and international foundations also overlook it, and hardly any multinational company is operating. These are ideal conditions for HappyFarm to build its product and optimize it before we expand to larger markets.

TRC: Why does HappyFarm believe engaging in sustainable practices is beneficial for both farmers and the African region? FN: Engaging farmers in sustainable practices help them reduce their cost of production by using less chemical fertilizer while restoring their soil health, increasing their yields, and thus improving their livelihoods.

Specifically, the FMNR method of integrating crops and trees in a farm also improves the situation of women and children, as they usually have to search for firewood far away from their houses and, therefore, cannot attend school or perform their economic activities.

HappyFarm also provides income opportunities to ambassadors and, in the future, other local partners, such as tree nurseries, who will supply the HappyFarm program, thereby contributing to the economic development of rural Africa.

TRC: Any important statistics to highlight that are specific to the Gambia?

FN: Coastal erosion, depletion of the natural resource base, loss of soil fertility, deforestation, and rapid population growth are among the most significant environmental concerns of The Gambia, besides the toll that global warming is taking everywhere.

TRC: How do you ensure innovation to meet the demands of a fast-changing world? Speak to technologies currently being used and any future ones on cue.

FN: HappyFarm is very data driven. In our product development, we run as many A/B tests as possible and put much effort into user research. This means we often try different models in different villages and see what engages the farmers most, so we can make informed decisions on which features are worth spending money on and which are not.

As for the current and future technologies being used to stay innovative, there are several to consider; for example, AI will be helpful to analyse the verification pictures farmers are sending us. AI, through pattern recognition, can tell farmers the species of a specific tree type, whether it is good for their farm, and which crops it can integrate with. Currently, our ambassadors are performing this task, but HappyFarm intends to automate this part through AI in the future.

GPS data can verify a tree's location and ensure it's at the place the farmer tells us.

Remote monitoring of activities and impact for data collection via satellite and drones will assist us to streamline our approach in the not-too-distant future.

TRC: How does HappyFarm Gambia relate to the Global HappyFarm organization?

FN: HappyFarm Global Ltd (in London, UK) owns HappyFarm Senegambia Ltd (Gambia operation). HappyFarm Global manages our global client relationships and operates the HappyFarm technology.

HappyFarm Senegambia provides training and support to ambassadors and farmers in the region and makes sure that all legal requirements are met. It is also used to channel the funds from our global clients to the communities and to engage with local partners, such as mobile money and telecommunication services providers.

Beyond that, HappyFarm Global always tries to work with suppliers in The Gambia if they meet our quality criteria. For example, our corporate identity and eLearning videos are produced on the ground in The Gambia. Addi- tionally, our curriculum is being developed in The Gambia. Our philosophy is "farmer first," We think local partners best understand farmers, and we would like to contribute to creating a digital ecosystem in The Gambia.

TRC: How will the work of HappyFarm Gambia impact the Gambian economy in the next few years?

FN: Using (FMNR) as our first technique, we intend to regenerate at least 25% of the total arable land over the next 10 years, so it can be under sustainable crop production. Historical evidence from other regions that have adopted FMNR practices has shown that crop yields can be at least doubled; with 110,000 hectares of arable land under sustainable cultivation, this would add an extra minimum of 100,000 tons to the farming output, generating higher revenues for farmers, which can help to boost the agricultural sector of The Gambia and contribute to its economic growth.

Sustainable farming practices can also help reduce production costs for farmers by reducing the need for expensive fertilizers, pesticides, and other inputs, increasing profitability, and improving farmers' competitiveness in domestic and international markets.

As more labour is necessary for tasks such as crop rotation, composting, and other sustainable practices, new (better paid) employment opportunities would be created in rural areas, helping to reduce the rural-urban drift of the youth, reducing the vast unemployment rates in the urban settlements along the coast and providing motivation for youth to stop the risky "adventure" of using the "back-way" to seek greener pastures abroad.

TRC: Future plans for HappyFarm to expand this initiative to other markets?

TN: HappyFarm Global intends to expand its operations across the sub-region and further afield, working with international clients with a need to offset some of their carbon footprints on one side and with local partners to help us implement our system on the ground on the other side.

Our current curriculum offers the highest value in semi-arid areas. Senegal, Ethiopia, northern parts of Ghana and Nigeria, and the Sahel Zone are suitable matches for HappyFarm. Our vision is that HappyFarm will play a vital role in advancing the Great Green Wall. However, for now, we are focusing on our pilot in The Gambia.

Places closer to the tropics are also interesting, but our engagement there would involve more tree planting and less FMNR as trees grow much better there.