The New Forests Company Group (NFC) is a sustainable forestry and value-added timber products business. While focused mainly on self-managed plantations, NFC has distributed over 10 million seedlings over the last 10 years outside the plantation, 7 million of which were distributed in Uganda. NFC is now looking to integrate the Ugandan out-growers that received seedlings into a commercially viable out-grower program. They have currently engaged 270 out-growers and this will increase to over 2,250 in the coming years.
They provide these out-growers with services such as out-grower group onboarding, mapping & tracking, tailored training, access to finance and market linkages. The main goal of this SDM is to create a social license that allows NFC to operate in Uganda, and to develop a secure, quality supply of timber in a commercially viable way. The analysis shows that the supplied services significantly increase (high-quality) timber production and therewith also farmer income.