Tonthoza Uganja

Tonthoza Uganja is the founder and CEO of Sustainable Farming Solutions (SFS), a women-led, carbon-funded agroforestry social enterprise based in Malawi that combines restoration science, carbon finance and community ownership to reverse land degradation across the country. Through her leadership, SFS is pioneering a farmer-co-created model that addresses both climate change and rural poverty.

SFS works with farming communities in Malawi, where 88% of farmland is degraded and most households farm soil that no longer feeds them. It restores land through agroforestry and uses carbon finance to fund the transition that farmers cannot afford on their own, with 9,000 hectares now under active agreements. Her model puts ownership in farmers’ hands, so the people restoring the land are the people who benefit from it. Through this work, Tonthoza is building income and resilience for thousands of smallholder households along Malawi’s degraded landscapes.

Tonthoza’s background spans restoration science and social enterprise. She holds a Ph.D. in forest landscape restoration, an M.Sc. in tropical forestry as a Commonwealth Scholar and a B.Sc. in forestry from Mzuzu University. She also lectures part-time in agroforestry at Bangor University and is a 2025 Mulago Foundation Henry Arnhold Fellow.