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THE ‘WOMEN’S COFFEE’ THAT’S GIVING FEMALE COFFEE FARMERS A BOOST

Fairtrade Fortnight starts on 25 February and this year’s campaign, She Deserves, is about helping women farmers grow better products – and get a better deal.

The campaign is run by the Fairtrade Foundation, formed in the UK in 1992 by charities including Oxfam, Christian Aid and Traidcraft. The charity works to empower small-scale farmers in developing countries, ensuring they’re paid a fair price.

GIVING WOMEN CONTROL

Eighty per cent of the world’s coffee is produced in developing countries by smallholder farmers, who typically live on less than $2 a day. Many are women, but they’re often not members of co-ops and don’t receive training or direct payment.

In 2012, the chairman of Kabng’etuny Farmers Coffee Co-operative Society in Kenya, Samson Koskei, gave his wife Esther some coffee bushes, encouraging other men to do the same for their wives and daughters. Owning those assets enabled the women to become co-op members, sell their own coffee, receive income and open bank accounts. When women are in control of more household income, that money changes things for the better in terms of health, education and investments.

FULL OF BEANS Fairtrade works to empower women coffee farmers like Esther Koskei

THE COFFEE WITH A WOMAN’S TOUCH

The charity has supported the training of 300 women in the co-op to improve the quality and yield of the coffee. It’s also assisted Kipkelion Union, a collection of 32 co-ops including Kabng’etuny, to produc and market a ‘women’s coffee’ in Kenya. „It’s called Zawadi coffee – the Swahili name for gift,” says project manager Marion Ng’ang’a.