A lot of poor farmers own non cultivable wasteland – just the sort of land that GreenOil focuses on for its plantations. Consistent with its aim of ensuring that the local farmer also directly benefits from this venture, GreenOil helps them to get organised into “land bank” cooperative societies in which each member contributes his land. Ownership of land clearly remains with the individual farmer.

GreenOil then works with the societies to plant high quality oil seed bearing trees and take care of them till fruition. After that, it buys the oil seeds from the society, thus assuring a regular annual income to the members, of the co-operative. Society members are used for labour for all this activity, thus getting guaranteed employment, along with the income from the sale of seeds. Over 300,000 man days of labour will be generated each year, in this project.

Thus the earning capability of the farmer increases more than two times – from the current $160 – $200 per annum to about $350 – $400 per annum, and apart from this, their wasteland gets converted into a perpetual forest.

Additionally, local farmers are encouraged to move into organic farming, thus moving them up from sustenance farming into more valuable produce and increasing their prosperity.