This Spring, will you support 1000 businesses to change the world?
Will you help inspirational producers to grow and thrive?
This time last year, your incredible support kickstarted our 1000 Businesses Appeal – meaning that, so far, we have been able to support over 100 fair trade producer groups across the world to expand and thrive.
Now, we’re asking you to help grow this mission. Will you give a gift today and help build businesses which build brighter futures for whole communities?
Mababu Cocoa
Since 2018, Transform Trade has worked alongside cocoa farmers in rural areas of Tanzania, supporting them to come together as collectives, grow new saplings, and increase their incomes.
This year has brought unprecedented challenges for cocoa farmers, in Tanzania and across the world. The price of cocoa has skyrocketed, yet farmers’ incomes are stagnant - thanks to erratic weather, new strains of pests, and profiteering middlemen.
Alongside these challenges come new opportunities. Together, these farmers set up Mababu Cocoa – a cooperative buying and selling raw cocoa products at fair prices. Selling as Mababu Cocoa helps farmers set a fair price and fight for change to buying practices, as well share knowledge and skills.
This Spring, Mababu is just one of the amazing producer-led businesses Transform Trade plans to invest in. But we need your support.
“As a group we dream of owning our own company for processing cocoa, so that our children can be employed here, and we hope this will happen due to the initiatives Transform Trade are doing for us.”
Mzinala S. Lutolo, cocoa farmer
Together, we can invest in fair trade businesses fighting for a just trade system.
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Tanzania Delicious Cashews
Tanzania is the 5th largest cashew producing country in the world – and yet most of the nuts grown there are exported unprocessed, so limited value from their production remains in the country. Tanzania Delicious Cashews, a business owned and run by farmers, is trying to change that. We’re investing in TDC as they work to create hundreds more quality jobs for farmers and workers by exporting processed cashews, increasing local incomes – and they’re are aiming for organic certifications too
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Expanding our work in the tea sector
With your help, we plan to invest in a number of new tea collectives in Assam and West Bengal, India. We’ve already identified 20 collectives, many of which are led by women, and have plans to support them to develop a range of premium, organic tea products – and to learn new regenerative agricultural techniques.
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Pahadiya Community Collectives
In Jharkhand, India, we’re working alongside the Pahadiya community, a marginalized tribal community, supporting people to come together and set up small farmer owned businesses, so they can sell their products at better prices, share agricultural skills and innovation, and access community seedbanks. Transform Trade and its partners already support five community managed seed banks, with a membership of 1,428 Pahadiya households.
With your support, we can expand our work over the next year, with new producer groups and in more countries – from supporting tea collectives in India, Bangladesh, and Kenya, to investing directly in exciting producer-led businesses in Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The impact of your donation:
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£18 could help fund the provision of organic, natural pest control sprays for cocoa farmers.
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£33 could help farmers to subscribe to accurate SMS weather forecasts, meaning they can plant and harvest at the best possible times and prevent the loss of crops.
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£110 could help producers to buy the new equipment and materials they need to process their cocoa into gels and powders, helping them to keep more value from their crops.
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£560 could help fund a producer business like Mababu to attend trade fairs and outreach events with local government officials so they can sell their products to new markets and raise awareness of the systemic problems faced by small and ethical businesses.
Since launching 1000 Businesses last year, we’ve made grants to over 100 producer-led businesses and community groups like Mababu Cocoa.
But it’s not just direct benefits – new jobs, new product ranges, and greater profitability – that investment in fair trade business brings. We invest in the producers who are fighting for fairer local and global trade systems – so that everyone can benefit from the profits of trade.
