BRONX, United States — The changing climate is already affecting developing countries. According to a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations report, women who run farming households in poorer nations lose 8% more of their yearly earnings than men during extreme heat waves, which amounts to about $37 billion in lost income every year. Flooding also impacts them the hardest, costing female-headed households an extra 3% in losses compared to men, or roughly $16 billion annually. The same research warns that if global temperatures rise further, women-led farming families could see their incomes drop by 34% relative to men’s.
These losses devastate families already struggling to afford enough food. Women face the greatest challenges because they often lack access to land and modern farming tools, and they also deal with unfair social rules that limit their options. This harmful cycle of climate damage and economic struggle drives poverty and hunger in countless low- and middle-income nations. Regenerative Farms Inc. is a U.S.-based eco-friendly nonprofit in Massachusetts working to break this cycle by directly addressing its root causes.
The Purpose of Regenerative Farms
Regenerative Farms’ model was shaped by conservationists Willie and Theo Smits, who drew on more than 40 years of experience protecting rainforests in Indonesia before helping design the Hub approach that Regenerative Farms uses today. The eco-friendly nonprofit in Massachusetts now partners with local groups in Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Peru, the Philippines, and Indonesia, along with additional work in Australia, Honduras, and the United States. Instead of bringing in outside plans, Regenerative Farms supports community leaders who already know their region’s challenges, providing hands-on training and practical tools, as well as connections to wider markets. Over the next five years, the goal is to establish 20 Regeneration Hubs, each meant to speed up land restoration, support fair treatment for women, and help communities grow their own food.
The results so far show real progress. In eastern Kenya, for instance, one of Regenerative Farms’s Hubs, led by The Drylands Natural Resources Centre, has worked with 860 women farmers to plant more than 1 million trees on damaged land. These efforts have improved local nutrition and created new sources of income for families. These trees are nutrient-rich SuperFood trees that can keep feeding a household for many years, offering lasting food security instead of quick fixes.
Mary Johnson, who founded and currently leads Regenerative Farms, said in an interview with Kim Schoukens, the founder and editor in chief of Women in Ag Magazine, that her own childhood shaped her path. Growing up next to a dairy farm in Massachusetts, she spent her days outdoors, learning from the land and from older farmers who taught her that “healthy landscapes and thriving communities go hand in hand.” That lesson stayed with her as her career moved from local conservation work to international development.
She created Regenerative Farms to help direct more money and attention toward women farmers who are already growing food under incredibly hard conditions. “In many places,” she explains, “women farm because they must.” In the process, they face “tremendous gender barriers, rising climate stress, and very limited access to land, credit, and training.” Through training in sustainable farming and support for fair decision-making within farming groups, Regenerative Farms fulfills its role as an eco-friendly nonprofit in Massachusetts helping women support themselves financially while repairing the natural systems their communities rely on.
A Closer Look at Regeneration Hubs and SuperFood Trees
The Regeneration Hub is the heart of how Regenerative Farms succeeds. A Hub is a local gathering spot where women farmers can come together to learn new skills, share what they know, and gain access to resources that can change their lives. The Hubs are designed to become self-sufficient over time. A single Hub can plant up to 1 million trees in a year once it is fully running. Additionally, a thriving Hub can teach nearby communities how to create their own Hubs, spreading the impact across entire regions and bringing damaged land back to health. Each Hub is customized to meet the needs of its specific location, whether that means training women in Kenya to protect their tree gardens from wildlife or helping Indigenous communities defend their forest lands.
The trees planted through these Hubs are not picked at random. SuperFood trees are packed with nutrients and can grow well even in harsh conditions. These trees are selected because they can help address malnutrition by providing important vitamins and minerals that many families lack. Regenerative Farms also looks for trees that offer proteins, healthy oils, and starches to create a more well-rounded diet. The goal is to ensure that families have access to nutritious food all year long, even during dry spells when other crops fail to grow. Every dollar donated to the eco-friendly nonprofit in Massachusetts goes toward planting one SuperFood tree.
Mary Johnson explains that the work goes beyond just planting trees: “We are learning that when investment happens with a clear long range goal in mind and a blueprint for landscape scale restoration, food and nutrition security improve, women’s health improves, and degraded landscapes begin to recover. Gender optimized ecosystem restoration through regenerative agriculture is one of the most powerful, yet grossly under-funded mechanisms we have to restore a liveable climate in the timeframes necessary.” By using Regeneration Hubs and SuperFood trees, Regenerative Farms is building permanent systems that help both people and the planet thrive well into the future.
Why Nonprofits Like Regenerative Farms Are Important Today
As changes in climate intensify, the need for solutions has never been more urgent. Regenerative Farms offers a clear path forward by putting resources directly into the hands of women who are already feeding their communities. This work matters because, as Mary Johnson puts it, “the future of food and farming needs your hands and your heart.” This eco-friendly nonprofit in Massachusetts demonstrates the need for collaboration if nations want to build a more resilient future for everyone.
– Melody Ruiz
Melody is based in Bronx, NY, USA and focuses on Good News and Technology for The Borgen Project.
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