About

Fertile Roots Foundation is a UK based not-for-profit organisation that brings the theory and practice of Permaculture to impoverished farming communities who are suffering diminishing rainfall in already degraded landscapes. We are currently working in Morocco, just north of Essaouira, with two coastal communities comprising several hundred familes.

But it’s not just about permaculture, it’s about exploring new markets and new produce, managing changing resources and aspirations holistically, and connecting remote communities with the growing, world-wide revolution in regenerative agriculture.  It’s all very well regenerating farmlands, but to be sustainable it’s got to also be profitable.

Ethos 

We’re not a big charity but we’re an effective one and one day that will make us big. We are growing slowly and carefully, just like the first trees we planted.  Like them we are building our root system and seeking out those little drops of water and nourishment that lie hidden all around us in the dry and rocky landscape.  Like them we don’t want to grow up too quickly, for then we might catch too much wind and without long, healthy and strong roots we’ll be blown right over.   Our roots will always be our foundation and we need to invest the proper time and effort into ensuring they grow to be fertile and strong.

Our roots are people. Our roots are the people of our projects, and others who like what we’re doing and want to get involved.

We believe that every single penny counts and look on every euro that’s spent on something unnecessary as being one less tree planted, one meter less of swale dug. We need to make big changes to the landscape in order to harvest rainfall and breathe life back into dead soils, but the more money we spend making those changes the less likely our projects are to work in the long term and the less likely it is that they will replicate elsewhere. As with our trees, we need to nourish our project roots, the people, but if we give too much they won’t grow strong, or spread.

We’re looking for donors to help us achieve our aims and who want to invest in the future health of our planet.  Change comes when an alternative is presented, one that’s clearly better and that’s so easy to adopt it cannot be argued with.  In five years we’re going to have that alternative displayed on the Atlantic coast of Morocco.  If you feel you are in a position to help us, and be a part of us, I would love to hear from you.

Mark Anstice

Founder & Director

The Fertile Roots Foundation is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) registered with the Charities Commission of England & Wales: Charity No. 1167460

Our Charitable purpose is:

To promote sustainable development for the benefit of the public by:
(a) the preservation, conservation and the protection of the environment and the
prudent use of resources;

(b) the promotion of sustainable means of achieving economic growth and
regeneration.

To advance the education of the public in subjects relating to sustainable
development and the protection, enhancement and rehabilitation of the environment
and to promote study and research in such subjects provided that the useful results of
such study are disseminated to the public at large.

Sustainable development means “development which meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.”