Why this project?

Roughly 40% of rural India's population cannot afford two basic vegetarian meals a day. In West Bengal, where most households depend on smallholder farming, that gap between what the land yields and what a family needs shows up every season — in what ends up on the plate, and in what has to be bought at market instead.

This project takes a different route to closing it. Rather than working on communal plots or open fields, it plants native and domesticated fruit trees inside homestead gardens: land that participating families already own, already tend, and already protect. Working with over 56,000 rural households, the ambition is 2 million fruit-bearing trees. The logic is simple — a mango or jackfruit tree in your own garden is a food source, a small income stream, and a piece of canopy at the same time. Published research on agroforestry in India consistently finds the same pattern: integrating trees with food crops reduces household vulnerability by delivering both subsistence and cash returns, while strengthening food security. Done properly, it does not just restore land. It changes the economics of a household.

Section heading: Trees inside the garden gate

Before a single sapling goes into the ground, the work starts with people. Field teams run social surveys with participating households using the veritree app, and community meetings identify interested families and provide training in low-cost, scientifically grounded agroforestry practice. Local botanists and GIS specialists support the process from the outset, and community members build skills in grafting, nursery management and planting that outlast the planting season itself.

Between January and March 2026, the project completed two planting phases across East Medinipur, averaging 49 trees per participating household. Every sapling was registered and verified. The species mix is deliberately local: jackfruit, mango, guava, pomegranate, lemon, wood-apple, stone-apple, elephant apple, Indian olive, Indian blackberry (jamun) and sugar palm, each selected for native character and suitability to local soil. Because many gardens already held established trees, soil conditions were moderate to good at most sites. Planting inside household gardens also solves two problems that dog open-field restoration: the trees get natural boundary fencing, and they get the daily attention of the family living beside them. Early root and shoot development indicates the saplings are establishing well.

Section heading: What the farmers get out of it

The case for this project is best made by the people planting the trees. Kajol Mondal, a farmer in Uttar Pukuria village, received 39 saplings and now tends them with her family: "I believe my family will not have to buy fruits from the market, as we will get them from our garden itself. Family members, especially the children, will be able to consume good-quality and naturally grown produce, which will save us a sufficient amount of money that we can use for the children's education." She also sees the growing canopy as habitat for birds and other species she says have become increasingly rare locally.

Mihir Nayek, a smallholder in Sukunia village, planted 71 saplings in the open space around his homestead. "The empty space in our garden is now becoming something useful for our family," he says. "In the coming years, these trees will provide fruits, shade, and a greener environment around our home. I feel happy knowing that what we plant today will benefit both our children and our land in the future." Both accounts point at the same thing: a household asset that compounds. Fruit that does not have to be bought frees up cash for school fees. Shade and canopy make the plot more liveable as temperatures climb. And because the tree sits in the family's own garden, the incentive to keep it alive does not depend on a payment schedule.