Terra Agricultural Cooperative

Terra Cooperative serves as the social enterprise wing of Environmental Defenders, ensuring financial sustainability for the organization while directly empowering a network of over 50,000 farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This initiative addresses climate resilience, financial inclusion, and sustainable agriculture by connecting farmers to critical resources and markets.

Climate change

The important role of indigenous peoples in the protection and conservation of the environment is well established and should be advanced.

Objectives of Terra Cooperative

The cooperative has the following objectives:

To strengthen the capacities of its members and governance structures through education and awareness-raising, aiming to improve their well-being.
To assist members and producers in effectively managing climate threats and preserving the environment.
To encourage the use of climate-resilient agricultural techniques among members and producers.
To provide agricultural financing and loans to producers and members.
To support market-oriented agriculture among members, increasing their production and farm productivity by facilitating access to quality, affordable inputs, technologies, and credit for production.
To organize, facilitate, and support collective marketing among members and establish market links by integrating warehousing, bulk collection, and storage management.
To process and add value to members’ products to access high-value markets and secure better prices for the cooperative’s products.
To promote and engage in business and development partnerships that advance the market-oriented business model of cooperatives and contribute to achieving the cooperative’s goals.
To cultivate coffee, rice, cotton, cocoa, cassava, pineapples, beans, mangoes, peanuts, maize, onions, bananas, palm oil, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, milk, green vegetables, as well as producing fish and animal products for the domestic and global markets.
To facilitate the production, collective marketing, bulk selling, and value addition of products from its members or farmers in the regions where it operates, in line with its strategic objectives.
To work independently and with producers and members to protect and restore lands to safeguard biodiversity and the climate.
To establish carbon credit/carbon price sales from existing or planned tree plantations.
To work independently and with producers and members to protect habitats and endangered species for future generations.
To establish tree plantations to combat climate change and improve weather conditions, ensuring adequate rainfall for agricultural production.

In pursuit of its members’ economic, social, and cultural aspirations, the cooperative will also undertake any other activities that contribute to achieving its social objectives, including community development.

Focus Crops and Products

Terra Cooperative supports diverse crops and products, including:

Coffee, rice, cotton, cocoa, cassava, pineapples, beans, mangoes, peanuts, maize, onions, bananas, palm oil, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, milk, green vegetables, as well as fish and animal products for the domestic and global markets.

These efforts cater to both domestic markets and international exports, providing farmers with multiple income streams and fostering economic growth.

Our Vision

By doing this, we envision a future where farmers and producers are financially secure, environmentally aware, and resilient to climate and economic challenges. By merging financial inclusion, market integration, and environmental restoration, Terra Cooperative transforms rural communities into thriving ecosystems that promote sustainable development and self-reliance.

However, despite having contributed the least to climate change, indigenous peoples are among the first to face its effects. They are also increasingly negatively impacted by climate action and green investments in their lands and territories, are increasingly negatively impacted by climate change mitigation initiatives on their customary lands such as the establishment of conservation areas and national parks, renewable energy projects, etc. The loss of land and natural resources contributes to the loss of traditional livelihood practice, valuable indigenous knowledge, and to food insecurity. It also entails risks of hampering mitigations efforts more broadly as indigenous peoples are not only the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change but also stewards of most of the remaining biodiversity, with important contributions to adaptation and mitigation efforts, e.g. in regards to nature-based solutions.

Land defense & human rights defenders

The growing demand for land and natural resources make indigenous peoples’ land a target for increased exploitation, illicit acquisitions, and land-grabbing.

Gender inequality

Indigenous women experience multiple forms of discrimination due to their indigenous identity, their gender, and poverty.

Tree planting and reforestation, seed banking and collection, biodiversity monitoring, restoration of degraded land, habitat protection and restoration for wildlife and plants protection, environmental education, and awareness campaigns.

Empowering people to develop their resilience to difficult situations, helping indigenous communities to advocate and take direct action against illegal land sales and forced evictions that often take place without their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, providing direct legal support, land survey, and mapping. We form, register, support, and equip women groups. Increasing agricultural productivity and market access, forming and strengthening producer groups and cooperatives through training, learning exchange, multi-stakeholder dialogue platforms, business mentoring, and coaching in gender, life skills, financial and basic literacy, and numeracy skills.

We protect, defend and secure environmental defenders and land rights activists who are targeted, harmed, and endangered due to their efforts to defend their environment, land rights, and tenure security. We offer emergency support service (relocation, legal, and medical emergency grants), capacity building to improve conservationists and defenders’ security (personal/organisational and digital security workshops), psychosocial support among others.