You are here: Home >> Donate Home About Us News The Programme Our Partners Donate     Donors Contact Us FAQs Donate "As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest." Nelson Mandela - Make Poverty History campaign address We all have the opportunity to help people out of poverty. It doesn't matter whther you are an individual or an organisation. What matters is that you take action now. Farmers Own provides the means for up to 40,000 farming families in Western Kenya to trade their way out of absolute poverty. Farmers Own assists the farmers to form commercially viable self-help groups; the groups are given contracts to grow crops for which there is a known established market; Farmers Own provides the channel to market thereby providing a scalable and sustainable solution to poverty eradication. Following a successful pilot in 2003-4 the main project started in 2006-7 and is forecast to break-even within 4 years of operation; in order to reach that point grant funding of $1,500,000 (£845,000) is required. The project has already attracted funding of $1,200,000 (£600,000) over 3 years, therefore a further $300,000 (£150,000) is being sought. From the figures above it can be seen that a contribution of less than $40 (£20) will lift one farming family out of poverty forever. Donations, large and small, can help to fund distinct parts of the project as follows: Sustainable Business Development $100 (£50) buys a season's Sunflower seed for up to 40 farmers which they would convert into $350 of income. $1,000 (£500) buys cell-phones and bicycles for a self-help group (up to 500 farmers) to help them to manage their business. $2,000 (£1000) facilitate payments to FAA managers and others to promote and do essential work vital to getting the system operational and consolidated $5,000 (£2,500) buy enough seeds for capsicums (chills) and build the essential drying house and quality control training for 500 farmers, 1 Farmers Action Association $10,000 (£5,000) buys a pick-up truck for a District Team who will support up to 10,000 farmers for the life of the project. $15,000 (£7,500) buy pineapple suckers for 500 farmers, build the drying house,buy the crates and cartons for packing fresh and facilitate training and the business set up. $25,000 (£12,500) build 5 Nurseries and 1 Farmer Training Centre supplying 5,000 farmers with planting material for fruit crops and technical training. The nurseries would grow crops like pineapples, avocadoes and macademia. $50,000 (£25,000) will establish up to 20 nurseries and 4 Farmer Training Centres for growing planting material for Phase 2 of the project and for training farmers in conservation farming techniques. $100,000 (£50,000) equips and pays 2 District Teams for one year of the project. Each District Team will support up to 10,000 farmers during the life of the project. Social Goals $1,000 (£500) fund a typical small community project such as supply of mosquito nets or protection of a spring for women to improve water potability. $15,000 (£7,500) develop a major community project such as provision of a clinic or electricity supply so that children can study at home and families socialize Select your category below to see how you can cooperate with Farmers Own in the noble goal of alleviating poverty. Individual donor Bilaterals and Multilaterals Churches/Schools Corporates Individual donor and Group donors There are many ways to support this programme as listed below: You can become a subscriber and/or make a donation as indicated here You can be a fundraiser, an activist gathering support, helping this fair trade movement for poverty eradication to accelerate forward. You can call and email your friends/workmates to request them to donate and help If you form a group of friends or a work group you can raise money for a particular programme activity, support it, be part of it and follow it through, pride in achievement being your reward. Workmates can lobby management to play a role too by provision of finance or services as part of the company CSR policy You can organise events ? a quiz night at the pub, a party at home, a street party, a ball. For any large event Farmers Own can provide someone to make a presentation and provide you with a presentation and materials so you can go forward by yourself or with your group. You can help by using the power of the internet, emailing fund raising appeals and finding ways of linking our site to others (fundraisers must have an operators number) If you have appropriate skills, knowledge and experience you can apply yourself. For example we need people who can develop modules for business methods training, people who know how to develop systems for product traceability labelling, people familiar with standards and certification systems to help develop operational manuals and contribute to training. You will be able to think of many ways to fund raise or provide services to help rural people say good bye to poverty but here are a few examples Help us now with your donation. If you have any other ideas you would like to share with us please contact us. Security and the Activist Before you start work as an activist for the Farmers Own mission to eradicate poverty through business development do contact us and submit a short statement of what you intend to do, identify your yourself and provide a jpeg facial image. Once we have interacted together we will issue you with a numbered photo I.D. Bilaterals and Multilaterals Farmers Own has different categories that agencies can contribute to as follows: One Year loans Lend us £1,000,000 for a year. The money will be held in a bank of your choice. We only want the interest. At the end of the year you have your principal amount back and we have benefitted from the interest generated. Crop buying fund To get people moving they need the contract + a guarantee of partial payment up front. For every 1000 mt of crop you might pay out 10/- kg - £75000. You might want that loan for 1month to six (if exporting). Now if the interest is 20% £7,500 goes to the bank and the farmer fails to get what is needed ? nil interest for first five years to bring him to a level where he can compete. Recycling farmer loan fund our money but administered by a regular finance provider on grameen principles. e.g. passion fruit development - the farmer requires a loan to cover poles, wire, termite proofing seedlings e.g. $ 400 (£200).here is huge potential for passion fruit and its derivatives in the market but the capital investment needed is beyond aspiration for a family in absolute poverty and there are no loan funds made available, so make it happen. Start up processing loan An FAA needs at least a drying house - e.g. for chilli and a pack house, circa £2000 for the former £5,000 for the latter. 80 FAAs x £7,000 = £560,000. Some locations will also need first stage processing facilities. Investors are sought. As this fair trade business develops considerable financial needs will have to be met. Farmers Own welcomes contact from those willing to provide loans with three year delayed fix ticket interest and repayment schedules in the context of specific business projects within the programme. Grants This programme has identified a key fields where investment is needed to accelerate and enable nusiness, not just for this programme but also in the national interest : - information and firefighting support; - seeds and planting materials; - business education and management training; - governance and monitoring and evaluation; - standards and certification ; Corporates There are many ways that almost any company and Farmers Own can work together in mutual interest. Tell us you want to help and where. Tell us of your company interests and we will help develop a satisfactory funding concept relating to poverty eradication and development of fair trade business One Year loans Lend us £1,000,000 for a year. for a year or a lesser amount if you are a small company. The money will be held in a bank of your choice. We only want the interest. At the end of the year you have your principal amount back and we have benefitted from the interest generated.At 5% your money will yield for poverty eradication $50,000 and there is a lot of potential for poverty eradication in that money. For your company chances are that you can offset much of the gift against tax liability. Specific investment grants and loans We need grants to invest in the start up situations for this Farmers Own business development. There are many opportunities for you. For example, we need money to develop capacity in food QC, in standards and certyification systems such as fair trade, organic, best practice (Eurepgap). We need help to develop mobile communications, GPS and labeling systems to reduce costs, improve product traceability and more. Equipment grants In the early phases of this programme we need to emphasise product development and for this we need HR, equipment and money for recurrent costs. Right now we are setting up a unit in Busia and another in Bungoma where we need drying houses, nursery houses, and soon we will want charcoal coolers for fresh produce and first stage packing and processing facilities. You can gift for that or if this is your corporate field we can accept items of equipment. At a smaller scale we need mobile phones, good quality second hand will do, but we need them HR and scholarships Management with the right skills and experience is in short supply. From corporates we would welcome short term technical and management development assistance in country, in actions to develop systems and counterparts. For our Kenyan staff we need scholarships and training money to upgrade them and people within the Farmer Action Associations. A good deal of relevant course offerings can be applied in this endeavour but money is needed for that. For the more senior levels we are looking for scholarships at European educational institutions, preferably with an associated work experience component (where an individual is worked through corporate departments as though a management trainee) Food companies If you have an interest in the huge potential of fair trade and know that we may be able to bring forward products that you want do contact us, even at this early stage of programme development. If we can develop an outline plan and your company is prepared to provide a modicum of advisory and technical support we may be able to make real progress together. Churches and schools For churches and schools there are many opportunities to assist and be directly in touch with those rural Kenyans who need your help. Whether church or school we can assure that your effort can be linked to specific groups where this is appropriate. You may be able to help in other ways, by promotion and wider fund raising in your home area for example. Look first at the individual and group donor sections, then at those sections of the website that interest you most. If you need further help to decide what your contribution is to be contact us and we will try to assist. It is amazing what can be achieved by a church or school group. Look at the example of Glenalmond College. They have done it. You can do it. How to donate Any cheques should be made payable to: Farmers Own and sent to us at: Farmers Own Ltd North House, 5 Farmoor Court, Cumnor Road, Oxford OX2 9LU If you would like more information, please do contact us by e-mail or by telephone: UK office - 01491 671 865 Approximate conversion rates $1.97 US = £1 UK £1 UK = 1432 Kenyan shillings Reporting your contribution The management process is tied to the two annual seasons. In February and September are conducted the post harvest performance reviews. These reviews are emailed to those who are supporting the programme. Farmers Own conducts internal audit on a quarterly basis and at the December year end is external audit and the preparation of annual accounts. These accounts are available to supporters. Unless the specific donation is reported adequately in a half year review (ibid) all subscribers and donors receive a short report and financial statement to show and tell on how and whee their money has been spent. These reports are dispatched in February and/or December. Assisting your endeavours The poor need your help to move forward. As a donor or active supporter you will need to know and understand what Farmers Own is all about and how best you can help and benefit. Your particular benefit is to know that what you do or give has a known impact. For you this website is a resource. You can find out what is going on by action on the ground. We want to see the website extended so that it reports what you are doing and so inspires others to contribute also. While we cannot address every single need Farmers Own can assist by materials such as power point presentations, jpeg images and fliers, so that you can use them in your work. Our contact information is on this site, so you can ask about your perceived need(s). For very active groups Farmers Own may be able to arrange a promotional visit, especially in the UK. Forexample one of our Kenyan staff is currently attending a UK university, there is a business development advisor based in UK and the Executive Chairman visits UK several times a year . It is our intent to work with supporters in ways that will enable cash generation for an incentive visit scheme, especially for situations where a single activist or a group has developed a network of supporters. If they do visit and learn about reality first hand they will be able to work more effectively. © 2007 Farmers Own Limited. All Rights Reserved.