Translations

TREEBOS.COM, a platform to finance the planting of fruit trees in Brazil and thus contribute to local development

1. Organizational Governance

Strategy and organization

Sector Agriculture

Year 2013

Country Brazil

Transmitter

Context

In 2012, at the Rio + 20 conference, Murlio Ferraz, presents his initiative “Orchard of the Future”: The idea is to link the small Brazilian farms with web users, who will fund the planting of fruit trees, monitor online, and receive a portion of the crop to consume or sell. The site treebos.com is thus created and Murlio Ferraz becomes an entrepreneur.

Objectives

Meet the needs of local populations
Preserve the nature and compensate deforestation
Develop local production and a healthy diet

APPROACH

In Brazil, while he is still a gynaecologist Murilo Ferraz, meets poor farmers who must destroy their trees to develop an export culture. He aims to create micro-local markets so that farmers can live with decent income.

Murilo Ferraz creates a website, treebos.com, to put in contact tree planters’ funders and producers.

On the website the user chooses an Orchard close to his home and his favourite fruit from a provided list. Treebos plants the tree and takes care of it, while the customer can keep track of its growth over the internet. When the tree starts producing, he can receive some of the fruits at home, and decide what to do with the surplus (donate it to charity, send a gift to someone else or sell it for profit in an organic market). Treebos receives a commission from the trade between producers and buyers and requires a contribution at registration on the website.

The company gets organized. Fruits are harvested and sold on site; volunteers become employees, companies are being created. Partners can be individuals or companies. Funded trees are followed by the technical team of Treebos which sends pictures on the net. An insurance system is implemented with a reserve of 10% of additional trees planted to replace a tree in case of poor health.

At the time of the Rio + 20 conference in 2012, the project of “Orchard of the Future “seduced everyone. Murilo Ferraz receives help from friends from around the world to plant more trees : 1000 trees are planted as well as plants. At the same time a fish farming pool is created in the Rio Bay.

The initiative is called to develop around Rio, with an urban population of 3 million families and 30 000 small farms.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

The business model of Treebos was recognized at international events such as Rio+20, Intel Global Challenge, Ethos Conference, World Forum Lille and Sustainable Brands San Diego 2014.
40% of produce gets lost on the way from the farm to table and the farmer gets only around 7% of the final market price so the initiative is called to develop around Rio, with an urban population of 3 million families and 30 000 small farms (70% of the production);