Powerwoman 6: Daphne Muchai

Agriterra trained 14 strong willed female (future) leaders in the first ever ‘Female Leadership in Agricultural Cooperatives Masterclass’, held in Kenya. The group is composed of Zambian, Ugandese and Kenyan participants, representing organisations that are active in coffee, dairy, sunflower or credit and saving.

Main purpose of the masterclass is to strengthen the leadership skills of these women. These highly motivated cooperative leaders return full of energy and ambitions back to their respective cooperatives, better equipped to take up their leadership roles and make a change contributing to closing the gender gap in agricultural cooperatives.

Powerwoman 6: Daphne Muchai (56) from the Women Farmers’ Association of Kenya (WoFaAK) 

Coffee producers San Fernando in times of corona virus

San Fernando coffee cooperative in Peru, located 13 hours away by road from Cusco, with more than 420 members, is facing the situation caused by the coronavirus using various strategies within a complex context. It is important to start mentioning that the lockdown measures dictated by the Peruvian government in order to control the pandemic have caused great difficulties in internal transportation, which in turn has meant that coffee farmers face problems to supply to the local markets with other products such as cassava or avocados. They produce this complementarily to the coffee production to obtain additional incomes, waiting the peak harvest season of coffee (May). It means that is has been almost impossible for them to move their products to the towns and neither to buy basic food, because they are not available in the local markets for the same reasons.