Coffee: Healthier than we thought, but not good for everyone

Saw this interesting article on the Wall Street Journal about the purported health benefits of coffee. There have been a lot of claims recently that coffee can help reduce the risk of everything from heart disease to cancer, which we obviously think is excellent news.

Many of these new studies seem to contradict older research which generally held that coffee was bad for you and actually increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Turns out that many coffee drinkers were also smokers and when the health risks from smoking were factored out of the equation, suddenly the coffee drinkers actually enjoyed a number of health benefits!

However this article reminds people that for every benefit there is a tradeoff. It's still not good for pregnant women or people with hypertension for example. Perhaps coffee should also come with the label "Please Enjoy Responsibly"? Read more here:

Here are some more interesting stats from the article:

• Diabetes: Many studies find that coffee—decaf or regular—lowers the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, but caffeine raises blood sugar in people who already have it.
• Cancer: Earlier studies implicating coffee in causing cancer have been disproven; may instead lower the risk of colon, mouth, throat and other cancers.
• Heart disease: Long-term coffee drinking does not appear to raise the risk and may provide some protection.
• Hypertension: Caffeine raises blood pressure, so sufferers should be wary.
• Cholesterol: Some coffee—especially decaf—raises LDL, the bad kind of cholesterol.
• Alzheimer's: Moderate coffee drinking appears to be protective.
• Osteoporosis: Caffeine lowers bone density, but adding milk can balance out the risk.
• Pregnancy: Caffeine intake may increase the risk of miscarriage and low birth-weight babies.
• Sleep: Effects are highly variable, but avoiding coffee after 3 p.m. can avert insomnia.
• Mood: Moderate caffeine boosts energy and cuts depression, but excess amounts can cause anxiety.

Source: WSJ research

Family and Friends Roast Available

Safi Coffee's Family and Friend Roast is now available. If you would like a bag of the limited edition supply use the paypal button below.

Coffee is sold in 12oz bags. You have a choice between dark or light roast. Shipments will be sent within 24 orders of purchase.

To purchase the limited edition supply please see our website: www.saficoffee.com

News update – Shannon Visits Kenya

Shannon Mulholland (executive director of Rural Development Connections and CEO of Safi Coffee) spent the whole of last week in Kenya, meeting with the local team, the farmers and supply chain partners...

Monday (Dec 8th), she met with the Kenya NGO board and picked up Rural Development Connections’ registration documentation. This is a huge step forward as legal registration means RDC can now move from the planning stages and start to really ramp up its programming!

She spent last Tuesday in Nyeri with the coffee farmers, discussing how Safi Coffee will buy the coffee from them, how the rains have been affecting them, what they learned during the local organic training they recently received, what projects they would like RDC to roll out and what items and tools they need to become stronger and more sustainable farmers. Much of what they asked for was simple enough – things like fertilizer, irrigation equipment, farming tools like wheelbarrows, hoes etc. (It would be remiss of me not to do a little plug here - It just so happens we are offering charitable gifts this holiday season, where you can buy exactly these items for the farmers. See here.)

While in Nyeri, Shannon toured a couple of the farms and introduced them to Georgia McPeak (pictured above), who is the country director and their new focal point in Kenya. They also visited a family run coffee wet mill and agreed on processing terms for the Organic Farming group.

Wednesday, Shannon met with Dorman’s Coffee group to talk about the local coffee industry, current coffee prices, the auction and their work with farmers in Kenya.

On Thursday, she met with Taylor Winch Coffee Company a potential partner for exporting the coffee.

Then on Friday she met with Su of Green Dreams, RDC’s local partner for organic market access for the farmer’s other produce. Part of RDC’s mission is to diversify the farmers’ income streams by encouraging them to grow and get more money for alternative crops as well as just coffee. This diversification improves the soil quality and makes them less reliant on one income stream that is susceptible to market fluctuations. Other income streams will include company dividends—as a group they sit on the board of Safi Coffee—and money made from carbon offsets through a tree planting program RDC is implementing.

Also on Friday, Shannon picked up the first batch of coffee from Taylor Winch, and set up the structure for more to be purchased later. Shannon cleared US customs early this week with an initial 50lb tasting bag and broke her home popcorn maker in her eagerness to roast it!

Compostable coffee bags have been ordered and label designs drafted, in order to make the very first NY Safi Coffee sales possible in early 2010! Watch this space for more info…!

Happy Holidays from Coffee Connections!

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Trip to Kenya

This week Shannon Mulholland (executive director of Rural Development Connections and CEO of Safi Coffee) is in Kenya meeting with the farmers participating in the Coffee Connections program and setting the wheels in motion to buy the first round of coffee for roasting and sale in the US next year. Earlier in the week she picked up the official Kenyan NGO registration documents which means RDC can really start to ramp up its programs and start to make a real difference to the lives of Kenyan coffee farmers.

She visited some of the farmers in the program and here are some of the photos she took:

Smallholder Farmers Bear Brunt of Climate Change

Kenyan Crop Yields Are a Fifth What They Were 50 Years Ago

As the climate change talks in Copenhagen get underway, Rural Development Connections executive director Shannon Mulholland travels to Kenya to meet with the farmers taking part in the Coffee Connections Project and to buy the first round of harvested coffee on behalf of farmer-owned direct trade coffee company, Safi Coffee.

"Its raining today. It has been raining for the past two weeks after months of no rain. Nyeri is expecting 15mm over the coming week mostly occurring today (Saturday) and on Wednesday," she wrote over the weekend.



Climate change is particularly affecting developing countries such as Kenya--normal seasonal dry periods are lasting longer and turning into droughts. When rain comes it causes floods because the ground is baked dry and cannot absorb the water.

Rain Shortage
According to the USAID FEWS Net Weather report for December 3 - 9 2009:

Many local areas in southern Sudan, western Kenya, Uganda, and the SNNP region of Ethiopia have been impacted by poor pastoral and agro-pastoral conditions due to long-term moisture shortages. Favorable late October – early November rains have improved some areas of dryness, except in northwestern Kenya. Drought and crop loss have also been reported in southern Sudan.

Food, Crop Security
Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga told a UN conference last week that climate change is threatening to negate economic gains made in the recent past in Africa, as it is affecting food security, according to this article in Kenyan newspaper, The Standard.

"Most countries now live between disasters; That is, rains are bringing floods, while dry seasons have become drought spells as a result of climate change," the article quotes Odinga as saying.

Smallholder Farmers Struggle
Small-scale farmers are feeling the brunt of changes in climate, according to this article by the Mennonite Central Committee, published on ReliefWeb, a United Nations portal. Thanks to worsening growing conditions, crop yields today are a FIFTH what they were 50 years ago.

From the article:

About 50 years ago farmers could expect to produce 25 bags of maize from one hectare (almost 2.5 acres), each bag weighing about 198 pounds, said Joshua Mukusya, a farmer whose family has been tilling the ground for generations. He lives in Kola, a community in the semi-arid Machakos District in eastern Kenya, about 56 miles southeast of Nairobi.

"Now, you will be very lucky if you get five bags per hectare," he added.

Climate Change Harms GDP
The Kenyan economy--where agriculture accounts for a quarter of GDP--are suffering as crops become less reliable. A British and Danish funded-study entitled Economics of Climate Change in Kenya predicts that Kenya could lose up to 3% of its Sh2.6 trillion GDP annually by 2030 due to global warming, according to The Standard. "Climate impacts cost Sh37.5 billion annually," said a summary of the report.



Rural Development Connections aims to help smallholder farmers that are struggling because of climate change. For more information on our work, please visit our Rural Development Connections' homepage.

We are a non-profit and as such funded by generous donations. If you would like to make a contribution, please use the Donate Now button on the left hand side of this blog.

Please also consider purchasing an Outside the Box gift for your loved one this holiday season--gifts include drip-irrigation, tools, organic and fair trade certification to help the farmers produce more and better crop yields.

Climate Change is Not a Myth - Just Ask Our Farmers

"Developing countries are bearing the brunt of climate change now. It's not something that might happen in 10, 20, 30 years time," Helen Clark, the administrator of the U.N. Development Program told the Associated Press yesterday.

This article describes how developing countries will need tens of billions of dollars each year to cope with the effects of climate change. As the world's leaders prepare to meet in Copenhagen later this week, we hope they are hearing this message.

That climate change is affecting the developing world is a fact our farmers in Kenya know only too well. Rainfall has become scarcer and scarcer in this part of the world, which already needs every drop. Over the last ten years rain has become less and less reliable, pushing our farmers deeper into poverty. The Nyeri area where our farmers operate only had 58 percent of its usual rainfall last year, according to the Kenyan Meteorological Department. Coffee needs a lot of water to grow, and unreliable rainfall prevents these farmers from achieving sustainability.

As part of our fundraising efforts to help impoverished Kenyan farmers, Rural Development Connections is offering charitable gifts this holiday season, that will buy tools and items that will help make them more efficient farmers.

Water as always is key to their success as farmers, and our charitable gifts include drip irrigation - which at $75 for a one-acre farm is far cheaper than $1,000 an acre for a conventional system - and a family's share of a community well, which will provide them with clean drinking water as well as water to irrigate their farm with.

For more information and to purchase an Outside the Box Gift from Rural Development Connection visit www.ruraldevelopmentconnections.org

Outside the Gift Box

It’s that time of year again! The holiday season is upon us. Which means lots of pushing and shoving at the mall, trying to find the perfect gifts for people that already have much of what they need.

This holiday season, why not consider a slightly different kind of gift? Rural Development Connections has a range of charitable gifts to offer, where every dollar you spend in your loved one’s name goes directly to needy Kenyan farmers. We’ll send you a card containing a picture of the gift and you can give that straight to your loved one. Click here to browse gifts!

You can choose to plant a tree, which will help reintroduce biodiversity and strengthen the soil, or buy a family’s share of a community well so they have clean water to drink and with which to irrigate their land. You could select new tools such as a wheelbarrow, hoe, machete or others to help make them more efficient farmers. Or you could purchase drip irrigation for a smallholder farmer, much cheaper than regular irrigation techniques, but just as effective. Buy a donkey to help a farming family transport fertilizer and crops (not at the same time obviously). There is also an option to buy local organic certification or fair trade certification to help farmers get more money for the crops they harvest. Or finally our favorite – enough cow dung to fertilize a farm for four months. This is particularly needed by the farmers as years of deforestation and poor agricultural policy have left the soil weak.

All of these items are desperately needed by the farmers in the Rural Development Connections program, which aims to provide them with the tools and the knowledge to sell their crops on the global market and move themselves higher up the value chain.

Unlike many charitable gift schemes, Rural Development Connections can guarantee that every single penny spent will go towards the gift selected. No admin fees, no siphoning off here or there, and no putting it into a larger pot for us to decide later how it is best spent. That means that if you want to buy a donkey in your best friend’s name, then a donkey is what will be purchased.

This cuts to the heart of our commitment to being Safi at all times – Safi means honest and transparent in Swahili.

The only time we do reserve the right to reallocate funds is if orders are received for an excessive amount of one particular type of gift. For example, if we receive orders for 700 donkeys and there is only a need for say, 60, we will fill the need first and then use the remaining funds to purchase the other much needed items. We hope this is understandable.

Thank you for considering a Rural Development Connections Out of the Box gift, and happy holidays!!

The Rural Development Connections team.

P.S. For more information on Rural Development Connections, the Coffee Connections project, or Safi Coffee, please see the following links:
www.coffeeconnect.org
www.ruraldevelopmentconnect.org
www.saficoffee.com

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Rotaract Halloween Party Supports Rural Development Connections

SAN FRANCISCO, October 19th, 2009¬—Rural Development Connections, a local non-profit organization which promotes fair trade and direct market access for coffee farmers in Kenya, today announced that the fifth annual Rotaract Halloween party will donate part of its proceeds from ticket sales to Rural Development Connections. The event takes place at the Novato Horseman’s Club, Novato, California on Saturday October 31st. Tickets to the event are $35, and doors open at 7.00pm.

Rural Development Connections is a non-profit, non-sectarian organization dedicated to the livelihood of small African farmers and assisting in moving their crops higher up the value chain. It accomplishes its goals by supporting the improvement of the quality and quantity of crops cultivated, further developing the value chain in agri-business and contributing to stabilizing children’s complete education in rural communities. Rural Development Connections is run by Bay Area native, Shannon Mulholland.

“We are very excited that Rotaract has chosen to support Rural Development Connections in this year’s party. Rotaract really knows how to put on a great event and does fantastic work supporting local charities in the process. We are really pleased to have been selected,” says Shannon Mulholland, Executive Director of Rural Development Connections.

Growing up in the City of San Francisco and Marin County, Shannon has always been passionate about buying from farmers’ markets and supporting local organic farming methods. Through her career in international development, she has seen firsthand how African smallholder farmers are often marginalized and impoverished due to a lack of direct market access. Many Kenyan coffee farmers earn less than $0.02 for producing a bag of coffee that retails in the US at $12. Last year the average Kenyan farmer made just $14 in coffee sales—for the entire year.

With this in mind, Shannon launched Rural Development Connections in 2008. Rural Development Connections’ largest project is the Coffee Connections Project, which provides international direct market access for African coffee farmers. This project partners Rural Development Connections with Safi Coffee, an African farmer-owned, fair-trade coffee company based in San Francisco. Safi Coffee will launch its Farmer Direct coffee in January 2010, through local Bay Area schools.

For more information, contact:Shannon Mulholland, info@ruraldevelopmentconnections.org or to buy tickets http://www.rotaracthalloween.org/

Rotaract Novato
Rotaract Novato is a branch of Rotary International that is comprised of young professionals and students who are committed to making an impact in the community through service, non-profit collaboration and networking events. Rotaract fosters leadership and responsibility, encourages high ethical standards and promotes diversity, international understanding and peace. To learn more visit http://www.novatorotaract.org/.

Rural Development Connections
Founded in 2008, Rural Development Connection's mission is to provide rural income generation opportunities to small scale farmers, discourage negative urbanization in sub-saharan Africa, and to encourage the completion of education of rural inhabitants. For more information visit http://www.ruraldevelopmentconnections.org/

Safi Coffee
Safi Coffee is a farmer-owned, fair-trade company, providing direct market access to African coffee farmers. Safi Coffee sells coffee Farmer-Direct in order for farmers to earn incomes as equity owners of their own company rather than from the bottom rungs of the supply chain. For more information visit http://www.saficoffee.com/

A Tree Planting Project: Environmentally Sustaining Smallholder Farming

Many of the Kenyan farmers that work through with Rural Development Connections (RDC) have cut down the trees over the years to make charcoal. For a farming family in Rural Kenya, charcoal is used as the predominant fuel for cooking and heating one’s home. In the past trees are not seen as a thing of natural beauty, yet as a means of survival. However, by cutting down so many trees biodiversity, soil strength and crop health on the farms have been compromised. The trees used to provide a shade canopy over the coffee trees, ensuring that they did not burn form the harsh rays of the equatorial sun. In addition by cutting down indigenous old growth trees, the farmers inadvertently have contributed to global warming by destroying some of the natural forests that offset human carbon dioxide pollution.

RDC is launching a Tree Planting Project as part of its sustainable farming program to counteract the environmental damage done. RDC’s aims to plant 500 indigenous and tropical trees in a farming community outside of Nyeri Town, Central Province, Kenya. The trees planted -- such as the indigenous Wild Fig that has deep roots able to pierce bedrock, bringing water to surface -- are expected to assist in encouraging the reintroduction of biodiversity on the farms, strengthen the soil and prevent mineral loss and erosion and provide the much needed shade of coffee trees.

RDC will develop a tress sapling nursery where young trees can be raised by the farming community until old enough to be planted into the farms. Each farmer will be responsible for the trees on his/her own farm and be expected to care for it through the years to come. As significant way of enticing the farmers to care for their trees and not cut them down in the future, RDC will teach the farmers the benefits of environmental farming in the Farmer Education Resource Center and look to trade carbon credits of the trees through the international markets as an alternative income.

During recent years the international community has become more concerned with global warming and the affects tress can have in offsetting Carbon Dioxide emissions from pollution. According to the most recent Economist, Carbon Credits are trading for approximately 30USD a ton. RDC farmer beneficiaries have a median of 100 coffee trees per farm, which may sequester roughly .5 tons of CO2 a year[1]. While coffee trees are often pruned to around six feet for ease of harvest and have a narrow trunk diameter (defining the CO2 sequestration rate) other taller trees with wider trunks such as many indigenous trees sequester heavier amounts of CO2. By planting indigenous trees, RDC hopes to increase each farmed acre CO2 sequestration rate to minimum of 2 tons a year and in the future trade these carbon credits on the international market on behalf of the farmers.

To donate funds to support Rural Development Connection’s Tree Planting Project see or for more information please contact Shannon Mulholland at info@ruraldevelopmentconnections.org

[1] The CO2 sequester calculation completed using an algorithm developed by research by Trees for the Future: http://www.treesftf.org/

5th Annual Novato Rotaract Halloween Bash: 31 October

For any of you in the San Francisco Bay Area that do not yet have plans for Halloween, but want to have some fun...why not come to the 5th Annual Novato Rotaract Halloween Bash?

Come dance and drink all night long with the rest us and you can know that funds raised by the party go towards our Kenyan programs! Dress in your best costume to The Novato Horsemen's Club.

Doors open at 7PM

Tickets $35

For more information: http://rotaracthalloween.org/

From the Ground Up: Composting with Coffee

Applying used coffee grounds to your garden as a soil ammendment or compost pile can be a great a source of nutrition to help your flowers grow.

Used coffee grounds are a perfect addition to compost or flowerbeds because:
1. They hold moisture.
2. They are free and unlike many over the counter products, they smell good and are not toxic if inhaled (as some inorganic fertilzers).
3. They contain Nitrogen-Phosphate-Potassium (N-P-K) and other trace elements.
4. They can deter slugs
5. They add acidity to the soil.

How to apply used coffee grounds in your garden: You can place the coffee ground directly on the top of your soil. Plants that like a lot of acid such as hydrangeas and azaleas will love you. Keeping in mind that you don’t want to add too much acid, you should balance the coffee grounds with the paper coffee filter (!!), dried leaves, chipped bark or shreaded cardboard (bowns) to ensure you keep the soil pH balanced.

How to utlize used coffee grounds in your composter:Since Coffee is high in nitrogen they act as a green material (rather than brown) when decomposing in your composter. Make sure to layer the coffee grounds (and other green materials) with browns (such as the used coffee filter (!!), dried leaves, dried grasses, chipped bark, or shreaded cardboard/paper). This layering affect will help speed up the decompotion process and if you have a vermicomposter (worm composting) ensure that you do no encourage fruit flies or other pests while providing the wiggly wigglers with “bedding”.

Coffee grounds will hold the mositiure to encourge decompostion and when correctly combined with enough browns they will generate heat. Keep in mind that there is too much of a good thing (even coffee) so don’t pile too much coffee into your composter and balance the grounds with other kicthen scraps (fruit peels, egg shells, vegetable cuttings, etc…) To ensure to not imbalance your composters pH too much you may want to through in a little lime, wood ash or baking soda. 1-2 spoons for every few lbs of coffee should e sufficent. This will also help if you have a vermicomposter to ensure the worms don’t get burnt from too much acid.

For more information on composting please see: www.vermicomposters.com or talk to your local organic gardening shop.

Organic Farming Training Commences

Last week the farmers started their first course in a forty hour intensive organic farming training course. The farmers are by default farming organic, but they do not understand the intrinsic value of such practices...yet! To date many have used cow manure to fertilizer their crops but not believing it was as good as the blue stuff that comes in a bag. They understand that they need to control the pests but questioned if there was another way to a chemical that makes their skin peal off (no, I'm not kidding!) when they administer it through a pump spray can on their backs.

With the farmers' interest in learning new (and cheap!!) ways of farming, our on the ground partnership with Green Dreams Ltd and through the financial sponsorship of MamaHope, Rural Development Connections is facilitating organic trainings to teach the farmers valuable knowledge. Modules include What does organic mean?, Why is organic produce worth more money?, How do I farm organically?, How do I compost and what are the benefits?, and How to cultivate earthworms and why.

This is the beginning of having the farms certified organic by the East African Organic Association, which will in turn not only provide lasting environmental affects on the land, but allow the farmers to sell the produce at 25-100% premiums in comparison to "regular" produce.

We are on the road to self-sustainability!

To see more photos please log onto our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Coffee-Connections/56441116902

Nau.com Funding Contest to win $10,000

Shannon Mulholland, the Executive Director of the Coffee Connection Project is currently being considered to win $10,000 towards the Coffee Connections Project. To win she needs over 100 votes by the 31 August. Won't you please help? It will only take two minutes and you will help change the lives of Kenyan farmers!!!

Take a look at this: http://secure.smilebox.com/ecom/openTheBox?sendevent=4d5441324e4459344e7a673d0d0a&blogview=true&campaign=blog_playback_link

and vote here: http://www.nau.com/collective/grant-for-change/shannon-mulholland-693.html

The Collective | Stories About Movement | Nau.com

The Collective | Stories About Movement | Nau.com

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Summer Intern, Krisandra Adams' accounts of her summer in Kenya

When looking for a Summer internship, the last place one might expect to end up is in Africa. Well that was the last place I expected to be anyway, but as the month of May drew to a close, I found myself within the heart of Kenya in a lovely city called Nairobi, interning for an NGO called Rural Development Connections (RDC). RDC works to help farmers find ways to improve the quality and quantity of their crops, to be able to profit more from agri-business, and promotes the completion of children's education in rural communities. Through RDC the farmers will be able to learn how to profit more from their crops on their own and not have to be dependent on RDC forever, and by pushing for the education of their children, the future generations will have the opportunity to pursue other livelihoods, if they wish, or be able to improve upon systems that their parents have developed for the farms.
The first thing that struck me when I arrived in Nairobi was how fast-paced and Westernized it appeared to be. The traffic was insane! The streets were packed full of speeding automobiles that did not seem to be following any traffic laws; at least not any traffic laws that I was accustomed to. There were many traffic lights, but no one paid any attention to those. They appeared to be more of a decoration than a safety precaution. On top of the crazy traffic, there were the Matatus. Matatus are a privatized bus system, but, in my personal opinion, anyone who chooses to ride in one of those death traps must have a few screws loose. I'd have to say the similarity of Kenyan culture to the Western culture I am accustomed to provided more of a culture shock than the African parts of the culture. I had come expecting to see people in more traditional African attire and living off the land. The last thing I had expected was to go to Nairobi and have it feel somewhat like home. Probably the scariest aspect of Kenya for me was the traffic and the Matatus. Once I had experienced that, the travel clinic's warnings about diseases and dangerous animals did not seem anywhere near as alarming as they first had. I would take facing down a lion over riding in a Matatu any day.
In Kenya, it seemed that everywhere I looked, I saw Western products being advertised. One can find Barack Obama merchandise anywhere. I even saw a man sporting a baseball cap that had the Cleveland Indian's baseball logo on it. Contrasted against this, the poverty of the country stood out in an almost glaring fashion. In Nyeri Town, the farmers live without running water or electricity. They reside in ramshackle huts that don't appear to provide much shelter. Within the city of Nairobi, there appears to be a higher standard of living, but it is obvious that people are still struggling to get by. Mothers send their children out into traffic just to beg for money. People will endanger themselves by standing in the middle of the road just to try and sell anything from a toy windmill to a kitten. I found it painful to see how hard the people work to only reap minimal benefits.
Working with RDC in Kenya gave me the chance to interact directly with the farmers who are a part of the program. My first impression of the farmers was that they are extraordinarily hard-working, very family oriented, and just friendly, happy people in general. One of the farmers, David Gachigi, stands out in my mind because he reminded me of a large, happy teddy bear. He is the type of person that you just cannot help but want to give a hug to. Even though the farmers live in such dismal condition, they never seemed unhappy. Their community is very close knit. Multiple generations of the families live and work together, and even those that are not blood-related seem to be treated like family as well. When one young man died, the entire town grieved at his passing.
While with the farmers, my job was to gather information about them for the database. That should have been an easy enough task, except for the fact that many of the farmers had not had the chance to receive a formal education and, thus, did not speak English very well or, in some cases, at all. So I was able to converse with some of the farmers, and they showed me their crops and discussed their methods of farming, but there were many times that I required a translator. Thankfully, an amazing person named Peter, who seems to be a master of languages, is a part of the Kenyan team of RDC. The amount of laughter while Peter was speaking Kikuyu, the local tribal language, with them made me feel like I was missing out on something. Therefore, that experience has made me wish to study their language so that I can eventually go back and converse with them directly.
During my stay in Kenya, I did do the tourist thing. I went out on safaris in national parks, Seeing giraffes, zebras, and warthogs close up, and getting stuck in the midst of a herd of buffalo was pretty nifty. I even got to pet a baby rhinoceros that reminded me of a hard, slimy puppy. But, in the end, I believe that my most important experience was with the farmers. It taught me something about life. Even with the barriers caused by cultural differences and languages, we can still connect as human beings with a hearty laugh and a big smile that can never be misinterpreted.

One of our objectives is to provide market access to farmers. The main way we are going to do this is via the farmer owned coffee company in the USA. However, coffee only harvests 1-2 times a year and that is a LONG time to wait for an income. And that means that the farmer’s income is wholly dependent upon one crop and may become dependent on our programming, which is not good!

So, I met with the company in Nairobi who is the main distributor for organic produce in Nairobi. They provide all kinds of produce to higher end retail stores. The farmers we work with are so impoverished they can not afford chemical fertilizers and pesticides; as such their crops are organic, just not on purpose and not certified. The organic distributor has greed to start purchasing our farmers “alternative” produce (beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, avocados, etc) at 25-100% premium prices to what they make now selling locally as long as they start a program to become certified organic.

We are assisting with facilitating the certification process through the Kenyan Organic Certification. This certificate is not acknowledged internationally but it is a stepping stone for the coffee to become internationally certified organic. We are going to pay for half of the certificate costs up front and have negotiated on behalf of the farmers for them to pay the rest off in increments via the sales of their produce. This ensures the farmers know that they are part of a team with us and we are not providing handouts, but will help hard working dedicated farmers. This also will give the farmers literal ownership of the registration and the process.

If we connect the farmers to this market, the farmers will have an alternative income (not only coffee) and get paid several times through the year. The next step is an organic farming workshop, where the farmers can learn what they have around them that is natural that can be used to make organic pesticides, fertilizers and ideal foliage for companion planting.

To my surprise yesterday, I learned that the farmers organized themselves (without us asking) and elected a chairperson, secretary, treasurer, 2 coordinators and 3 (women) members to a board with will over see their new co-op. They have even started measures to get registered legally! I am so impressed with their initiative and dedication to making their project work!

Coffee Connections is lead by a Wanjiru

This week has been an interesting week indeed. I arrived in Kenya on Sunday to officially start-up the Coffee Connections program. Having previously lived in Kenya, I relied on friends and previous colleagues to assist me in gaining the correct contacts and information I need to be successful in start-up. I spent much of the first week trying to get operational issues completed: visiting the farmers, buying a car, finding a suitable location for an office, assessing whether the recent killings in the area by an organized group threatened being based in the pre-identified project site, obtaining government support and, of course, fundraising.

Visiting the farmers was an amazing and unique day. Until that day, the farmers had only liaised with the Program Manager, whom is a national staff member. In an area where ex-patriots are not common, rightly so the farmers wanted to meet me. They were apparently not expecting a woman, as many jaws dropped when I introduced myself as the Executive Director of this organization. While gender politics were apparent, I believe I quickly won over their trust and respect as we spent two hours talking about their needs, desires and what I believe Coffee Connections can affect. I was re-named by a man on the street "Wanjiru", which means woman in Kikuyu (a local tribal dialect). The farmers assured me they would work hard and I confirmed we had to work as a team to accomplish all of their livelihood development goals.

After being so encouraged by the eager farmers I knew I needed to open an office and find a vehicle ASAP. The vehicle had to be a 4X4 given the bad dirt roads would quickly turn to mud as soon as it rained! I feel that the NGO Gods were looking down on me, as I met a previous colleague who agreed to sell us his 4X4 for half its value and accept a payment plan as we don’t have enough money to buy it outright! Sure enough the same day we found out that our office would only cost 1/10 of what we expected to pay and the local Massai tribe whom we will be buying cow manure from as an organic fertilizer which is less A LOT less than the shop prices!!!!!! It is funny that I am so excited by inexpensive 4X4’s and cheap organic fertilizers! While many may find me sad, I am over the moon. Now all I need is to find a couple of foundations that will support us financially!

All in all it’s been a very good week! It’s International Fair Trade Day and The Coffee Connections Program will be able to look back at this as an anniversary: the day we started to affect change for Kenyan coffee farmers!

Name Our Coffee Company Contest

We our inviting you to participate in Name Our Coffee Company contest. Coffee Connections’ retail arm will be launched in 2010 and we need a name for it. Our Coffee Company is different than others out there because it will be owned by coffee farmers, so consumers know that they are buying it directly from the source… no middlemen in this outfit!

We want our name to represent 4 main concepts: a high quality coffee, a farmer owned company, organically grown and environmentally minded. So put your thinking caps on and come up with the most brilliant coffee company name you can think of.

All Name Our Coffee Company contest submissions must be submitted by 30 April 2009 on our website: http://www.coffeeconnect.org/id65.html The winning entry will receive five pounds of fresh roasted coffee and a the new coffee company’s t-shirt.

Net Impact Backs Coffee Connections for the March 2009 ideablob showdown

Coffee Connections is working hard to collect as many votes as possible to win ideablob.com's monthly start-up funding contest. Net Impact, a global network of leaders who are changing the world through business, backed Coffee Connections in this month's show down via their weekly newsletter on 25 March 2009.

Read Net Impact's 25 March 2009 Newsletter:
http://www.netimpact.org/associations/4342/files/20090325.htm


Remember to vote for Coffee Connections by the 31 March: www.ideablob.com

Coffee Farmers Need your VOTE

When I wake up in the morning all I want is a really good cup of strong coffee! I am not too concerned about anything else. I walk straight to the kitchen, grind some fresh roasted beans and make a pot of coffee. The smell alone makes me happy to be awake!

I am a total coffee snob and love the good stuff! But through my travels I have met so many coffee farmers that do not have the right tools to farm effectively. Hence they end up producing a bad crop and make very little money... so I started http://www.coffeeconnect.org.

Coffee Connections is a non-profit, non-sectarian organization dedicated to the livelihood of small scale African coffee farmers and assisting in moving their coffee higher up the value chain.

We are in a contest to win 10,000 USD in start-up funds for our coffee farming capacity building project. We need your help...all your have to do is VOTE. Please vote for Coffee Connections on ideablob: http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/4887-Coffee-Connections

I am asking coffee lovers everywhere... please vote for Coffee Connections. Vote for better quality coffee, vote for more just prices given to farmers, vote for Direct-trade!