Can land restoration create jobs? These young entrepreneurs prove it

In Senegal, Daniel Halman works with a simple idea: if a farmer can produce more on less land, some of that land can be freed up for restoration.

His company, Féro, combines high-productivity greenhouses with agroforestry systems. Plants grown in greenhouses can be sold relatively quickly, while fruit trees and native species are grown elsewhere on the farm. By balancing production and restoration, this model aims to reduce the amount of land needed for cultivation while making restoration economically viable.

Mr. Halman discovered the potential of restoration while still a student, after taking part in a small project planting trees and restoring land.

“Of course you can choose to do this as an NGO, but I specifically chose to continue it as a company,” he said at an event in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the host city COP17 UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

Time is the biggest constraint. Although trees take years to produce economic benefits, the corporate world requires income much more quickly. Féro’s answer is to combine restoration with greenhouse crops that can be harvested and sold more quickly.

“In Senegal, people love onions, so we thought this was a really good opportunity,” Halman said, explaining that identifying environmental problems was only part of the effort. For a business to be successful, it must also respond to market demand.

Solar powered sensors to use water and input more efficiently

Ritkatmun Bwemana, co-founder of Green Eden Farms, started entrepreneurship through his own experience as a small farmer in Nigeria. He knows firsthand the pressure to produce more food from land that is losing productivity.

His company developed ScareGrow, a solar-powered precision farming system that helps farmers make decisions about water and other inputs, and avoid using more than the soil needs.

For Green Eden Farms, success is not only measured by how many farmers use the technology or how many devices the company sells.

“We want to know whether they are actually conserving water, using fewer inputs, and using resources at the right time and in the right place,” he said.

For Ms Bwemana, this is also key to large-scale restoration: it must deliver real benefits to those who depend on the land.

“If you go to a farmer and say, ‘This is land restoration,’ but it doesn’t make economic sense to them, and they won’t buy it.”

Turning agricultural waste into a tool for healthier soil

In Ecuador, Carlos Alfredo González Vargas sees opportunity in two challenges at once. Years of intensive use have caused agricultural land to become less productive, while large amounts of forest and agricultural remains are burned, abandoned, or left to rot.

The answer is Pacchar, a company he founded in 2021 that turns forestry and agricultural residues into biochar, a type of charcoal that is returned to the soil. Its porous structure helps retain water and nutrients, reducing the need for fertilizer, while carbon can be stored over long periods.

Pacchar currently works with producers of cocoa, bananas, roses, vegetables and other crops in several provinces in Ecuador. According to the entrepreneur, they have worked with more than 100 farming communities and implemented soil restoration practices on more than 500 hectares.

“It was sad to see agricultural land and productive ecosystems turn into deserts,” Mr. González. “This gave me a sense of urgency to start this business, because land restoration cannot be postponed.”

He said that after several years, the trials showed increased yields as well as savings in water and fertilizer.

But results alone are not enough to win the hearts of farmers. Many are skeptical because the same companies selling these solutions also provide evidence that they work.

“You did the research, but you also sold me the product. I don’t believe you,” González recalled being told.

In response, Pacchar partnered with universities and independent research institutions to test the results across different types of soil and plants.

“Innovation must go hand in hand with research so that we can build credibility,” he said.

Using AI to turn agricultural intelligence into opportunity

Mashrur H. Shurid faces a similar challenge in Bangladesh: gaining farmers’ trust in a context where erratic rainfall, floods, drought and salinity make farming decisions increasingly difficult.

When he started developing Aunkur in 2021, one of his first hurdles was convincing them that the technology could provide precise enough information to be truly useful in the field.

Aunkur combines data about soil, weather, and the farm itself to help small producers decide what to plant, when to plant, and how to manage crops as conditions change. According to Mr Shurid, the system now supports more than 33,000 farms in Bangladesh and has begun trials in other countries.

For farmers, technical reading is useless if it cannot be translated into concrete decisions.

“This is the seed you have to choose, this is the fertilizer you have to use, and this is the dose you have to give,” explained Mr. Shurid.

When such data proves useful, Aunkur can also connect small producers with buyers and financial institutions who have little information to assess them.

“When we see that farmers are actually seeing real value, we need to measure it,” Shurid said. This evidence, he continued, could then be conveyed to banks and investors.

Building a business around land restoration

The four entrepreneurs were among those who took part in this activity Youth Ecopreneur Program (YECO), an initiative of the International Trade Center and UNCCD G20 Global Land Initiative which helps young people develop environmental businesses and prepare to attract investment.

In its most recent edition, the program supported 225 entrepreneurs from around the world, with 25 selected for an advanced stage offering guidance on business models, intellectual property and investment readiness.

The broader ambition is to build what organizers describe as a restoration economy, that is, an economy that restores land to generate livelihoods and create market opportunities, rather than relying on projects or public donations indefinitely.

“We need solutions that come from communities and also activate markets, so that this can create sustainable change and restoration,” said Fabiola Nava of the G20 Global Land Initiative.

For entrepreneurs, this support is practical. Mr. Shurid received advice from the World Intellectual Property Organization regarding Aunkur’s intellectual property strategy. Mr. González highlighted training in approaching investors and connections that later helped Pacchar build research partnerships and attract investment. Bwemana values ​​specialized mentoring, while Halman emphasizes training in business skills ranging from selling products to protecting ideas.

If their ideas, and the ideas of other young entrepreneurs like them, can be scaled, then they can help transform restoration from an activity dependent on recurring funding to one that creates long-term economic value for the communities restoring the land, and gives them a reason to continue doing so.