Komaza is a distributed forestry company that partners with smallholder farmers in Kenya to plant trees for sale as sustainable wood products.
Motivated by a desire to get rural dryland farmers out of poverty, he researched and developed several preliminary business plans, with trees emerging as the winner.
After graduating university, Howard immediately returned to Kenya, hired an early team, and began planting with the first farmers in 2008.
Working through a village-based farmer extension network, Komaza identifies interested farmer groups under the advice and consent of community leadership and then provides them with appropriate agriculture inputs and tools on credit – such as improved seeds and fertilizer, on-farm training and support, and complete vertically integrated value chain services so that they can access markets and transform their previously unproductive land into valuable tree farms.
Farmers can then reinvest this profit to start their own business, pay school fees for their children and receive improved healthcare.