Smallholder farmers produce up to 80% of sub-Saharan Africa’s food, yet soil degradation, declining soil fertility, and climate change are reducing agricultural productivity. As yields fall, pressure on forests and other natural ecosystems increases, accelerate environmental degradation. With two-thirds of the region’s farmland already degraded, these trends are worsening food insecurity, threatening livelihoods, and undermining the resilience of people, landscapes, and food systems.

Restore4Food integrates sustainable food system approaches, including agroecology and regenerative agriculture, into landscape restoration efforts across Africa. The initiative works with farmers, communities, governments and private sector partners to develop and scale practical solutions that restore soil health, improve food security, strengthen livelihoods and build climate resilience while protecting nature.

Restore4Food builds on WRI’s experience with locally led land restoration through Restore Local and a proof of concept developed with farmers, community organizations, NGOs and government partners in Kenya and Rwanda. The approach is being scaled across three priority landscapes: Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley, the Ghana Cocoa Belt, and the Lake Kivu/Rusizi River Basin across Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

Restore4Food focuses on five interconnected areas: 

  • Local knowledge and capacity: Adapt and expand a seven-module agroecology curriculum, strengthen community-based organizations, and expand Farmer Field Schools and peer-learning networks.
  • Finance and markets: Strengthen the financial and commercial capacity of farmers and agroecological enterprises, support local bio-input producers and connect producers to appropriate finance and markets.
  • Policy and institutions: Work with sub-national governments to integrate agroecology into extension systems, public investment plans, policies and service delivery.
  • Farmer cooperatives and extension: Strengthen cooperatives and develop efficient channels to deliver extension services, bio-inputs, knowledge and market opportunities to smallholder farmers.
  • Research, data and learning: Establish a multi-site, longitudinal platform to track changes in soil health, crop yields, pest pressure, food security, incomes, livelihoods, biodiversity, forest cover and water security. 

The initiative uses an options-by-context approach, matching locally identified land degradation and household challenges with context-appropriate agroecological solutions informed by scientific evidence and farmer experience. These include practices such as agroforestry, soil and water management, organic matter management, biological inputs, diversified cropping and integrated pest management. 

The goal is not simply to plant trees or promote individual farm practices, but to strengthen whole landscapes and food systems so restoration delivers measurable ecological and socioeconomic outcomes. 

Project partners:

Seed Savers Network, Slow Food, County Government of Nakuru, Rural Development Inter-Diocesan Service, Action pour la Protection de l’Environnement et la Promotion des Filières Agricoles, Association pour le Dévelopment Intégral des Communautés