This is Ms Ngoc, a rice farmer who lives in Vietnam with her two young daughters.

Rural Vietnamese farmers heavily rely on rice production for their food and income, but producing rice is often costly and difficult work. Ms Ngoc was able to grow just enough rice to feed her family, but not enough to make any money for herself or her children.

The innocent Foundation works with NGOs to deliver our vision of sustainable farming for a secure future. Over the past few years, we have funded a project with IDE UK who work with poor rural households to create income and livelihood opportunities for families like Ms Ngoc’s. It was through this project that Ms Ngoc heard about a new Fertiliser Deep Placement (FDP) technology at her local Women’s Union group.

FDP is a process where fertiliser is compressed into a small pellet full of goodness. This pellet can be put into the ground alongside rice plants to increase crop production. Ms Ngoc applied it to her crop, harvested over 100 kg more rice than before (that’s a lot of rice) and made a nice profit in the process.

More rice, more money and a very happy family indeed. 

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Our Craig and Rio are in Peru working with the Crees Foundation and they've managed to send us a little update. Read on to find out more.

So we made it. After 3 days of travelling we arrived in Salvacion, Peru where the foundation is supporting the Crees Foundation with their GROW project.

It's pretty remote here. We had to drive high up into the Andes before descending down into the lush green of the rainforest. We've seen some amazing sights, including monkeys, rare birds and as many species of butterfly you can shake a stick at.

We've spent the last couple of days visiting as many of the beneficiaries of the project as possible, and we've seen the incredible work that the farmers do here to protect the rainforest (putting many of us to shame in our efforts to save the planet). We've also been chatting to women about their biogardens and how having them has substantially improved the amount of fruit and veg their children are getting in their diets. 30-40% of children in Salvacion are malnourished, so the biogardens have really helped tackle this issue.

Right now the diet that these women and their families have, consists mainly of rice, meat and eggs, so we're spending the next couple of days teaching them how easy (not to mention, tasty) cooking with vegetables can be - in the hope that they'll start to include them in their daily diets. We'll be building a biogarden at a school down the road too, to help educate the local kids.

So adios for now. We'll have more of an update soon.

P.S. we're sending this from the middle of the rainforest. Technology these days - incredible.

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From time to time, we like to visit some of our innocent foundation partners to say hello.

In the past, you may have seen stories from innocent people like Helen, JT, Emilie, Andrew, Clover and Emma, all of whom have visited foundation projects all over the world to share their skills and expertise where possible. Now, it’s our Craig’s turn. He heads off to Peru to work with the Crees Foundation this weekend and we’re really excited that someone from innocent is having the chance to work with this really remote project.

The innocent foundation agreed to support the GROW project set up by the Crees Foundation in 2010 for 3 years. The aim of the project is to boost local income and improve child and adult health by diverting activity away from environmentally damaging sources of income, and working with local people to develop family biogardens and community plots and promote agroforestry.

Since 2010, things have gone really well and produce is being grown in the biogardens (see photograph of Senora Rebeca Paccori in her biogarden below). Tasty, fresh veggies have really helped to improve diet and health, and the surplus crop can be sold for income. That’s where Craig will come in handy. Craig works in our commercial team selling our veg pots so he’ll be putting his skills to good use – working with the GROW project to investigate ways to market the surplus produce, so that the growers can make as much money as possible.

We’re hoping Craig will be able to send us an update from Peru* so watch this space for more.

*worry not, Craig, we know that’s probably easier said than done when you’re in the middle of the Amazonian rainforest.

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For over twenty years, Send a Cow has been helping thousands of African families and orphans out of poverty, working with them to grow enough food to eat, sell their produce and develop small businesses that last. Send a Cow provides cows in Africa, but it’s more than that: it revives sustainable agriculture techniques that have been long forgotten

And, after a successful project in Uganda, the innocent foundation is now funding a new, three-year project in Kenya. Five new groups have been set up, covering 120 families and over 300 orphans, mostly in the west of Kenya. Training has been carried out in development values; sustainable, organic agriculture and basic skills for self-governance, mutual support and democratic working.

Send a Cow works closely with the families it supports, teaching them the skills they need to build new lives free from poverty and hunger and encouraging them to pass on the skills, seeds or livestock they’ve acquired to others in the community. This “Pass it On” principle not only builds stronger communities, it allows Send a Cow to help even more people to develop the skills, confidence and self-respect needed for a happy, healthy life.

If you'd like to know more about Send a Cow, click here. 

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