Fair Trade News

Published May 08, 2006

Kenya: Plan to Help Tea Farmers in Kenya Wins Global Prize

by Susan Ellis, United States Department of State
Washington, DC

Since it began more than a decade ago, the Highland Tea Company has been recognized internationally. It recently won third prize in the Global Social Venture Competition, a rigorous, worldwide MBA student business plan competition for social ventures -- organizations that not only create profits, but also produce a social or environmental return on investment.

Kenyan Wanja Michuki started the company with her mother, who planted the first tea seedlings on her acreage in Kenya in 1991. (See related article.)

Although Michuki had graduated from business school, she was able to enter the competition by teaming with a current Columbia Business School student, Ron Mincy, who serves as Highland Tea's chief executive officer.

Part of the plan that won them the prize is educational. "This is kind of a pet project for me," she said, "because, when I was studying economics and politics at Bryn Mawr, my focus was on development; and education was the thing that just grabbed me because it's long-term development planning when you have an educated work force."

One element of the plan is an adult education program for the tea farmers. "They can't read, so they can't take advantage of methods to improve their productivity," Michuki said. "So I came across a company called WorldSpace [WorldSpace International Satellite Radio Service] that has a global satellite, and their African satellite, called Afristar, has been partnering up with meteorological departments of various countries and distributing solar-powered radios to households, to farmers, and giving them content that helps them with their agriculture.

"Things like information on climate, on weather. If El Nino's coming in six months, how do you prepare for that?" The radios will give farmers information that will help them keep from losing their crops.

"In this Fair Trade program, the part that we would play would be distributing the radios," she said. Their factory has been Fair Trade certified, she added, "and then we have to set up the fund that collects the monies for Fair Trade, and all of this is tied to selling our teas. We're at our tipping point -- it's all gelling now."

The information for the farmers will be broadcast by a local radio station, in the local language, "which then takes away the problem of how to provide adult education to illiterate people," Michuki said.

Another element of the plan will provide primary school education. "We want to go to schools and upgrade them, not build new schools. Also to put qualified teachers into the schools," she said.

"When the new Kenyan government of President Mwai Kibaki declared universal primary education, you had all these kids showing up for school and there weren't enough resources to cater to these kids, not enough classrooms to accommodate that influx."