Daily CSR
Daily CSR

Daily CSR
Daily news about corporate social responsibility, ethics and sustainability

Building Access To Stable Financing Through ‘Honey, Cocoa & Coffee Businesses’ In Mexico



07/31/2018

The Mexican farmers can turn to honeybees for alternative crops while sustainable cocoa’s demand leaves a “significant” growth option for the sector.


Dailycsr.com – 31 July 2018 – The Root Capital’s chief executive as well as the founder Willy Foote writes that many agriculture based businesses of Latin America have short life span. The blame, however, cannot be put on the Mother Nature in the form of bad crops or even on the lack of “enough hard-working labourers”. The reason always seems to come down to the absent of “financial training and little access to credit”.
 
Nevertheless, Foote points out that:
“Now, here’s where that bee and your morning coffee come back into the picture”.
 
The Root Capital has joined the Walmart Foundation in order to facilitate credit access and training for twenty four agriculture based businesses across Mexico. The critical of these enterprises ensure the link between “small farmers” and the global markets, whereby stabilising incomes. At this point, Foote adds:
“Over the next two years, we will work with honey, cocoa and coffee cooperatives that collectively reach 7,500 small farmers”.
 
The above mentioned project was launched in the month of December 2017 and till now it has come out with “tailored training in financial management and accounting systems” to 8 “Mexican honey and coffee cooperatives” and Foote continues:
“We’ve also supported four of these businesses – that previously had no access to credit from commercial banks – with $1.1 million in new financing. To date, this credit and training has strengthened the livelihoods of more than 2,000 small farmers”.
 
Thanks to the project, Root Capital found an opportunity to help the farmers in unlocking the “hidden potential of honey and cocoa”. Even though the demands of honey have shot up in the U.S., the majority of the producers live in extreme poverty. Likewise, they adopt beekeeping as their secondary income besides their “primary activity” of farming coffee.
 
However, seeking economic opportunities offered by honey is a privilege reserved only for the ones capable of investing in it. Honey business doesn’t occupy “much land”; it can be pursued in various climates while the revenue generated from the business is “relatively high earnings per kilo”. Moreover, beekeeping also has environmental benefits that go “beyond livelihoods”.
 
Good health of the bee hives is a means to ensure the sustenance of “diverse ecosystems by pollinating plants” even some being the food crops that we rely on. Similarly, cocoa also can deliver on same promise.
 
Latin America is the producer of “48%” of the “sustainable cocoa” in the world besides “85% of its certified organic cocoa”. Given the demand of “fine chocolate” one can safely say that the business has “significant room for growth”. Honey and cocoa both provide alternative crop for “small-scale coffee farmers” who deal with food insecurity and battle climate change.
 
Foote expressed his gratitude saying:
“Thanks to support from the Walmart Foundation, Root Capital will build the capacity of early-stage honey, cocoa and coffee businesses to access stable financing. And that stability will, in turn, empower farming families in Mexico to invest in nutritious food and education for their children, better farm productivity and so much more”.
 
 
References:
3blmedia.com