Alter Eco Foundation

As the new charitable arm of the organic and fair trade chocolate company, the Alter Eco Foundation will work directly with cacao farmers to provide resources to help them transition to dynamic agroforestry, a method of regenerative agriculture with many positive environmental, economic, and social benefits. According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to agriculture and forestry. If our current conventional agricultural practices don’t change soon, the UN also estimates that most healthy soil will disappear within 60 years. Dynamic agroforestry is a method of regenerative, climate-positive farming that integrates diverse crops into monoculture, or single-crop, systems. Some of the many benefits include improving natural biodiversity and soil health, drawing carbon from the atmosphere, strengthening cacao health, improving farmer working conditions, and creating additional revenue streams for farmers from the various crops planted with the cacao. Research has shown that this method of sustainable farming can have a significant impact on reversing global soil degradation caused by monocultures, chemical use, and global climate change.