My Farm Trees: A Digital Platform for Inclusive, Transparent and Resilient Forest Landscape Restoration

Digital transparency and incentives for resilient landscape restoration

My Farm Trees (MFT) is a digital platform that supports forest landscape restoration by tracking every step of the process from seed collection to tree growth through blockchain-enabled transparency. It integrates three mobile applications for documenting and managing seed collection (My Farm Trees Collector), managing nurseries and seedlings production (My Farm Trees Nursery), and monitoring tree planting and natural regeneration (MyGeoFarm), all connected to a centralized online dashboard. The platform ensures traceability, quality control, and data verification, while enabling digital payments that reward farmers and communities for successful restoration outcomes. Developed by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, MFT helps link seed supplies, nurseries, and restoration practitioners, promoting the use of native tree / shrub species, improving livelihoods, and contributing to climate resilience and biodiversity conservation.

Pioneered in Cameroon and Kenya, MFT is being scaled in other African countries as well as Asia, Central and Latin America.

This technology is pre-validated.

9•9

Scaling readiness: idea maturity 9/9; level of use 9/9

90 %

The survival rate of seedlings planted using MFT technology

3500 USD

Annual benefits for the Seed collector

11000 USD

Annual benefits for the Nursery manager

IP

Open source / open access

Problem

My Farm Trees (MFT) was developed to overcome major barriers to effective and inclusive forest landscape restoration (FLR). It addresses the following challenges:

Lack of diversity in native species and seed sources, which limits the ecological quality and resilience of restoration efforts.
Weak seed systems and poor market linkages between seed collectors, nurseries, and restoration initiatives.
Limited opportunities for entrepreneurial, farmer and community-led nurseries and livelihood diversification through restoration activities.
Limited technical knowledge and capacities of local communities to participate in forest landscape restoration activities and collect the benefits.
Gender imbalances in decision-making, implementation, and benefit distribution.
Absence of reliable frameworks to monitor and verify restoration success and tree survival over time.
Lack of transparent tools to ensure fair and equitable benefit-sharing among stakeholders such as smallholder farmers, seed collectors, and nursery managers.

By addressing these challenges, MFT establishes a transparent, inclusive, and data-driven system that strengthens seed supply chains, supports local entrepreneurship, and rewards verified restoration success.

Solution

Facilitating Community Engagement: The technology fosters collaboration among local communities, integrating traditional knowledge with scientific approaches to promote sustainable forest landscape restoration.
Digital documentation of seed collection and delivery: (MFT Collector app)

- Safeguarding native tree diversity and establishing a digital information system of their genetic resources to promote sustainable use.

- Creating new value chains (e.g: collection, storage, processing, transport, distribution…) for native tree seeds

- Linking supply and demand for native trees species seeds in quantity and in quality

Production of good quality seedlings and management of nurseries operation (MFT Nursery app)

- Diversifying the production of seedlings of a big number of native tree species.

- Promoting entrepreneurial opportunities and interconnected networks of nurseries to supply the growing demand for good planting materials.

- Keeping records and managing nurseries operations with a digital tool

Managing trees growth and providing incentives (GeoFarm app) - Trees planting operations, maintenance, and monitoring.

- Estimating carbon and ecosystem services benefits

- Payments of financial incentives for environmental services to communities and restoration practitioners

Enhancing Natural Resource Management: The technology improves the management of agricultural and forest biodiversity, contributing to resilient food systems and environmental sustainability.

Key points to design your business plan

This technology benefits end users (smallholder farmers, community nurseries, restoration projects) by providing digital tools to plan, monitor, and manage tree planting effectively, improving restoration success and biodiversity.

Regarding the cost structure:

The platform requires investment in smartphones and data connectivity.
Training and ongoing technical support are essential but no licensing fees apply.
Estimate the economic and environmental benefits gained from improved tree survival and restored landscapes.

Adults 18 and over: Positive high

Everyone even illiterate and indigenous communities (such as the Baka in Cameroon) can use MFT apps to document seeds collection, tree planting and their maintenance, and receive financial incentives.

Others: Positive high

Indigenous communities in Cameroon and Malaysia are using My Farm Trees Collector to document seeds collection

The poor: Positive high

Most users and beneficiaries of the platform are smallholders’ farmers living in rural areas.

Under 18: Positive high

Youths are highly involved in seed collection activities with their smartphone and are earning revenues from that.

Women: Positive high

Women are heavily involved in the use of My Farm Trees in Cameroon and Kenya, and are collecting the reward for planting seedlings and ensuring their survival on farm or in the broader landscape. Many are also involved in seedlings production in nurseries.

Climate adaptability: Highly adaptable

All seedlings planted are assessed for threats related to climate changes as well as fire, habitat conversion, overexploitation and overgrazing.

Farmer climate change readiness: Significant improvement

We've trained farmers in each village on the importance of planting the right tree to the right place for the right purpose. By doing so we ensure that seedlings planted will grow well and provide later the different products and or ecosystem service expected from them to the communities.

Biodiversity: Positive impact on biodiversity

Very positive as we are mostly focused on planting useful native trees and shrubs species on farm / agroforestry systems (e.g. cacao, coffee, etc.), enriching degraded natural forests / sacred forests, and promoting assisted natural regeneration. We are also planting threatened tree species in community land especially in schools, churches and parcs.

Environmental health: Greatly improves environmental health

Having more trees in the landscape improves environment health.

Soil quality: Improves soil health and fertility

Some of the native tree species promoted improve soil fertility

Scaling Readiness describes how complete a technology’s development is and its ability to be scaled. It produces a score that measures a technology’s readiness along two axes: the level of maturity of the idea itself, and the level to which the technology has been used so far.

Each axis goes from 0 to 9 where 9 is the “ready-to-scale” status. For each technology profile in the e-catalogs we have documented the scaling readiness status from evidence given by the technology providers. The e-catalogs only showcase technologies for which the scaling readiness score is at least 8 for maturity of the idea and 7 for the level of use.

The graph below represents visually the scaling readiness status for this technology, you can see the label of each level by hovering your mouse cursor on the number.

Scaling readiness score of this technology

Maturity of the idea 9 out of 9

Uncontrolled environment: validated

Level of use 9 out of 9

Common use by intended users, in the real world

Maturity of the idea										Level of use
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Countries with a green colour: Tested & adopted
Countries with a bright green colour: Adopted
Countries with a yellow colour: Tested
Countries with a blue colour: Testing ongoing

Countries where the technology is being tested or has been tested and adopted
Country	Testing ongoing	Tested	Adopted
Benin	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Burundi	–No ongoing testing	–Not tested	Adopted
Cameroon	–No ongoing testing	–Not tested	Adopted
Côte d’Ivoire	–No ongoing testing	Tested	–Not adopted
Ethiopia	–No ongoing testing	–Not tested	Adopted
Kenya	–No ongoing testing	–Not tested	Adopted
Uganda	–No ongoing testing	–Not tested	Adopted

This technology can be used in the colored agro-ecological zones. Any zones shown in white are not suitable for this technology.

Agro-ecological zones where this technology can be used
AEZ	Subtropic - warm	Subtropic - cool	Tropic - warm	Tropic - cool
Arid
Semiarid
Subhumid
Humid

Source: HarvestChoice/IFPRI 2009

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are applicable to this technology.

Goal 5: gender equality

Involvement of women in tree seed system (e.g. seed collectors) as well as tree planting and monitoring

Goal 10: reduced inequalities

Everyone (including and indigenous communities, women, individual farmers, local communities, sacred forests) are involved in forest landscape restoration activities

Goal 12: responsible production and consumption

By creating new value chain and by linking the supply and demand for native trees species germplasm (seed and seedlings), the platform is promoting responsible production and consumption and making landscape restoration resilient.

Goal 13: climate action

My Farm Trees is permitting to plant the right species to the right place for the right purpose. Each seedling planted is carefully assessed for different threats and vulnerability to climate change in the planting site.

Goal 15: life on land

My Farm Trees is promoting mostly the use of the vast diversity of native tree species and their seed sources in forest landscape restoration activities.

1. Download the apps in Play Store and create a profile

The 3 applications (MyFarmTrees Collector, MyFarmTrees Nursery, MyGeoFarm) are available on the Google Play Store. After installation, one will need to create a profil

2. MyFarmTrees Collector (The Seed Collection)

Scan seed collection: Initiate a new collection by either scanning a pre-printed QR code label or manually creating a new QR code.
Add name and details of the collection: Provide a name for the collection and specify the country/region/village of origin.
Capture GPS location: The app automatically records the precise GPS coordinates of the mother tree.
Capture collection details: Record detailed information including species names, number of seeds, and the type of germplasm collected (seed, cutting, scion, wilding, layering), some photos and some general observations.
Deliver seed collection: The app offers a function to search for nearby registered nurseries where the seeds collected could be delivered.

3. MyFarmTrees Nursery (The Nursery)

Create nursery: Register a new nursery by providing details such as photos, an identifier code, contact ID, owner and team member details (name, email, phone, address, website), a description, country, location; record geographical coordinates and map the site(s).
Create new field: Map the specific areas or beds within the nursery grounds.
Register collection: Scan the QR code of seed lots delivered to the nursery to link them to their collection site.
Create plants: Attribute a unique QR code to each new individual seedling produced. Add details on the name of the species and, if known, the seed provenance (origin).
My plants: View detailed information and track the status of all seedlings produced and registered within the nursery.

4. MyGeoFarm (Planting sites)

Create farm: Register a new planting site with information including photos, an identifier code, contact ID, owner/contact person details, a description of the farm, country, location; record geographical coordinates and map the site.
Team: Optionally, add contact details for other individuals working on the farm.
Create new field: Map the specific planting areas within the site.
Add new tree: Register and document each newly planted tree.
Register external tree: Document existing trees or natural regeneration occurring on the site.
Manage trees on their planting sites: Record maintenance operations performed on seedlings, natural regeneration, sapling and adults’ trees.
Monitor tree growth: Periodically monitor the health and growth of each registered tree.

5. Geofarmer (My Farm Trees dashboard)

The web dashboard centralizes all data collected via the mobile applications.

- Data Centralization and visualisation: Information collected through MyFarmTrees Collector, MyFarmTrees Nursery, and MyGeoFarm is aggregated and accessible on geofarmer, the dashboard of the platform.
- Digital Payments: Data on planting and monitoring of seedlings survival synchronized in the dashboard, is converted into digital payment done to the beneficiaries (individual farmers, community, schools etc.) as a reward. Each transaction is recorded in the blockchain