This project is all about creating hope for a cooperative of 50 determined women farmers in Kholpa, a village in Senegal.

Impact of Your Donation | Imagine that we could give these women the tools to bring their collective annual income from €1,500 to €150,000 per year. This would bring better access to education for their children and improved healthcare for their elders. With your donation, we can make this dream a reality through the power of agriculture. Together, we can transform the women's plot of land into a profitable farm with greenhouses, agroforests, and poultry production. This will support their passion and their dream of bringing prosperity to their village.

The Women's Cooperative | Yasine, the cooperative’s president, is a mother, farmer, and an unstoppable optimist who keeps everyone’s spirits high. However, the extraordinary group of women farmers she leads face many challenges. For years, their harvests have been shaped by drought, depleted soils, and the weight of limited financial means. They are only able to farm three months per year and face droughts for the remaining nine months in which they are not able to farm. When the rain comes, most of its water runs off and is not captured by the plants and soil. Due to the heat, water insecurity, and land degradation, yields have been diminishing every year, which have been slowly decreasing the potential income these women can earn with the means that they have.

Hope | We are bringing a fresh perspective to this inspiring group of women. We have developed real solutions to their challenges, which will turn their land into a productive garden of Eden. With a multilayered agroforest, they will harvest fruits, legumes, and nuts, improve the degraded soil, cool the microclimate, and capture the rainwater like a sponge. Fifteen 400 m² greenhouses will function as economic engines and produce tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and lettuce which will be sold on the regional markets. Combined with poultry farming, this system produces diversified income and will allow the women to cultivate their land with love, determination, and prosperity. We will accompany the women in this agricultural transformation with professional training and your support, ensuring they thrive with the new infrastructure on their farm.

Why is this Important? | By integrating agroforestry into profitable farming systems, we empower farmers to restore nature while securing their livelihoods, demonstrating that economic growth and ecological regeneration can thrive together. This model will allow birds to find refuge in what was once barren land. Soils will regenerate, and 12.5 tonnes of CO₂ will be sequestered per year.

We believe this system is the future of farming in Senegal. We want to support smallholder farmers with its potential, but due to their limited capital we need your help to reach them.

Project Plan | The project aims to reach a target revenue of €150,000 per year in order to generate a dignified income for each woman farmer. The women will receive horticulture training and technical assistance from Delphy, a large agriculture consulting firm focused on high-tech greenhouse cultivation in the Netherlands. The project also includes financial training to ensure the cooperative achieves sustainable autonomy. Together we can accelerate the women's learning curve for greenhouse farming. Using conservative projections, the women can generate ~€6,500 per greenhouse per year in the first two years. With our technical assistance, they will grow this revenue to ~€10,000 per greenhouse by the third year. The agroforest is estimated to reach an annual revenue of ~€30,000 in year 10 when it has fully matured. The poultry farm, with the growth of 2,000 chickens per year, will lead to an additional ~€4,500 in revenue.

The potential income of the farm is in fact higher than €150,000 in the long term. This will sustain the growth and development of the cooperative, multiplying the impact made by your contribution to the livelihoods of the families in Kholpa.

Why Our Investments Are the Right Fit | The greenhouses that your contribution will fund are just as unique and resilient as the women in the village. They are 24% cheaper than their competitors on the market, due to the use of sustainable bamboo as a building material instead of steel. This bamboo is sourced from the south of Senegal and is designed in a flower shape in the roof, making it unique compared to traditional greenhouses.

What also sets the model apart is its use of an innovative cooling system. This will allow for between 400% and 2,000% higher yields compared to traditional outdoor farming. Plants work in a similar way to you. When the temperature climbs above 35 °C, it becomes harder to be comfortable and productive. In the same way, the plants we will grow in the greenhouses need an optimal temperature and humidity. Also very important is to let as much sunlight as possible into the greenhouse, because 1% more light is generally 1% more yield. Other low-tech greenhouses on the market use shade nets which limit sunlight entering the greenhouse to lower the interior temperature. However, we have measured that their indoor climate still exceeds 35 °C, which will bring serious stress to the plant and limit production. The best choice for the Senegalese climate is therefore the bamboo greenhouses we will build. With their transparent plastic covers, they let the available sunlight into the greenhouse, while the plants also benefit from an active cooling system to keep them happy and productive.

Financial Plan | This project will be realized by raising funds through crowdfunding, partnering with NGOs, and credit. United, the funds raised by your valuable contribution and the other sources can transform the lives of the women in Kholpa. We are launching this dream through the power of a crowdfunding campaign which aims to collect €50,000 between November 2025 and April 2026. Your contribution will kickstart the farm's transformation, as it funds the complete construction of five greenhouses and the planting of the agroforest. Féro will make contact with NGOs focused on women’s empowerment through agriculture to complement the budget with €200,000. This will cover the necessary technical amenities, including the water tower, solar energy installation, rainwater reservoir, and water pumps. In order to increase the long-term sustainability of the project, the budget also includes €100,000 which the cooperative will finance through credit. Together with the NGOs’ finance, your contribution will be used as the collateral that the women need to gain access to their loan. In as little as five years, they will pay off this loan, after which their profits will sustain the livelihoods of many generations to come.

Your Impact | The women will grow year-round in these greenhouses instead of the usual three months per year. They will become climate-resilient and benefit from an abundance of vegetable production made possible by the application of Dutch horticulture technology and knowledge. They will be able to remain in their villages instead of being forced to seek work in distant cities. Families will stay together and farm together. Women will invest in their children’s education and create brighter futures. This will all be possible through the impact of your investment.

Together we can transform their land from a place of scarcity to one of abundance and good financial gains. The women's land will become a place of hope for the future. A place with meaning and purpose.

Who Are We? | Through the power of your donation, Féro, a Dutch-Senegalese company, is initiating this new beginning in collaboration with the women's cooperative. Féro is a social enterprise entirely dedicated to enhancing smallholder farmers' income through innovative, climate-resilient agricultural technologies. We believe reforestation should be so profitable that it becomes the clear and compelling choice for smallholder farmers to transform their cropland into thriving, biodiverse agroforests with the addition of mid-tech greenhouses. We have a dedicated team in Senegal composed of an architect, development specialists, builders, and farmers. We invite you to visit our website (ferodesign.nl) to learn more about our impact-driven company.

Helping You Feel Connected to the Project | We want you to truly see the difference your support makes. Through Féro’s social media channels on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, we’ll continuously share video updates capturing the farm’s transformation, from the first seedlings to a flourishing agroforest and greenhouse installation. Through our videos, you will also meet the remarkable women of Kholpa, whose strength and dedication are at the heart of this project.

Documents & Progress Reports | At the end of the project, we will share a detailed fundraiser report to show how the funds were spent. We have prepared a project plan document which you can access through our website. If you wish to learn more about the project budget, detailed activities, or would like to get involved, feel free to contact us or visit our website https://ferodesign.nl

As the women of Kholpa say each morning with heartfelt kindness:

“We wish you beautiful peace.”

Make a donation today.