The projects

The projects supported by CardoVerde are mainly located in the humid tropics of Latin America and in East Africa, where conditions tend to be dry. In most cases, schools with their own agricultural land are involved, so that infrastructure and long-term project management are usually available on site. An important goal is to involve the pupils’ families and enable them to contribute their experience and learn new practices. Where possible, the project teams in comparable ecological regions are networked and the observations made during the testing of plant species and cultivation practices are documented and made available to each other. Some of the projects are presented below as examples.

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Food security among the Shawi in Peru

Innovative agriculture and self-sufficiency at a school in Mexico

Sustainable coffee cultivation in Kenya

Food security among the Shawi in Peru

Meeting of delegations from three CRFAs (Centro de Formación en Alternancia) consisting of student, teacher and parent representatives in Antioquía in November 2025 to exchange ideas and plan work for 2026
Members of the Shawi from the 3 CRFAs in the Alto Amazonas region during a grafting exercise
CardoVerde provides advisory and financial support to three secondary schools in the province of Alto Amazonas in the northern Amazon region of Peru. The pupils are predominantly indigenous people from the Shawi community. The schools are run according to the concept of “Formación en Alternancia”: two weeks at boarding school alternate with two weeks at home with the pupils’ own families. This gives children in very remote regions the opportunity to attend secondary school without having to move to a city.

The training concept was introduced in Peru by the NGO ProRural in 2002 and has its own status in the country’s education system. The supported CRFAs (Centro de Formación en Alternancia) have larger areas of land and agricultural topics are part of the curriculum. The cooperation with CardoVerde aims to introduce innovative practices in the technical training of the students and to improve self-sufficiency in food in terms of diversity and quality.
Various plants for green manure and food supply are first tested in an “observation garden”, where 3 to 4 students each cultivate a small 4 x 4 metre plot and document their observations. Seeds are produced from the species that cope well with the conditions of the site for further distribution in the region.

After jointly planting agroforestry plots, the groups of 3 to 4 pupils from the first year take on a 16 x 32 metre “block” and cultivate it under supervision throughout their 5 years at school. The agroforestry practices are based on the principles of “dynamic” or “syntropic” agroforestry developed by Ernesto Götsch -Source. The pupils can harvest the first fruits of “their” trees while they are still at school.
The current focus is on the CRFA Nueva Esperanza. Through joint meetings and workshops with delegations from other CRFAs in Antioquía and Pucalpillo, the innovations were also taken up there. It is a strategic goal of the cooperation between ProRural and CardoVerde to promote networking and the exchange of proven practices and procedures between CRFAs with ecologically comparable conditions.
The project with ProRural was supported from October 2023 to December 2024 with 25,000 euros from the Small Projects Fund of the BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in Germany) and administered by the Schmitz Foundation.

Innovative agriculture and self-sufficiency at a school in Mexico

A group of boys in agricultural training at the Villa de los Niños school near Guadalajara, Mexico
Students working in the fields
The main aim of the Congregation of The Sisters of Mary is to provide secondary education to children from the poorest backgrounds. The sisters run large boarding schools in various Latin American countries as well as their headquarters in the Philippines, and since 2019 also in Tanzania. The collaboration with CardoVerde began at the boys’ school near Guadalajara in Mexico, which has around 2,000 pupils. The school has large agricultural areas and several greenhouses, which are used as a learning environment for the pupils and to provide the school with its own supply of high-quality, freshly harvested food.

CardoVerde supports the site by providing expert advice and financial resources, primarily for seeds, tree plants and equipment. At around four months, the rainy season in Guadalajara is relatively short, making the effective use of water resources one of the site’s key issues. Thus, one focus in the beginning was to test various drought-tolerant plants and then propagate the seeds of those species that proved successful. The plants should not only produce a good harvest but also a lot of organic material as mulch and “food” for the microorganisms in the soil. The legume species Cajanus cajan, Dolichus lablab and Canavalia ensiformis have proven particularly successful; Tithonia and sorghum varieties are currently being tested.

Now that the greenhouse leases expired in 2025, the current focus is on recultivating and using the greenhouse space for their own purposes. The first major harvests of vegetables have already been brought in. The pupils work in groups on a voluntary basis, and for all of them, contact with the soil, plants and animals is a beneficial addition to their school learning.
The pupils are supervised by two employees with agricultural training and a consultant experienced in organic farming, who is financed by CardoVerde. In addition to plant cultivation, other areas of work have been established. Chickens, pigs and bees are now also kept, and worm compost is produced from organic kitchen waste.

Sustainable coffee cultivation in Kenya

The OTEPIC team in Kitale, Kenya
Harvest residues used as organic matter for mulching
CardoVerde is supporting the local organisation OTEPIC in establishing a diversified agroforestry system in which coffee is specifically combined with shade, fruit and biomass trees as the main crop. OTEPIC (Organic Technology Extension and Promotion of Initiative Centre) is based in Kitale in north-western Kenya and supports smallholder families – especially women and young people – by promoting permaculture and ecologically sustainable farming methods.
The agroforestry system also serves as a demonstration area, providing practical examples of how sustainable coffee production can be implemented in the region. This creates climate-resilient, ecologically stable and economically viable cultivation systems that offer long-term prospects for people and the environment. In addition, CardoVerde promotes active exchange between farmers by facilitating meetings, training courses and practical seminars on site. The focus is on mutual knowledge transfer, the exchange of experiences and seeds, and joint learning.
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