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…!
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