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Volume 1
Number 1
May 2004
e-news in French
A Letter from the
President:
Introducing
ADF e-news
Full Text >>
ADF Board Trip Builds Partnerships, Honors Successes, Celebrates a
Homecoming
Full Text >>>
New ADF Projects
Providing Mali's Food
Distributors with
A Fresh Approach to Marketing
Full Text >>>
Sweetening the Earnings
Potential of Tanzania's Cane Growers
Full Text >>>
Working with Local
Experts to Promote Sustainable Development in Guinea
Full Text >>>
Enhancing Food Security
and Economic Independence in Rural Niger
Full Text >>>
Giving Women Economic
Tools to Fight HIV/AIDS in Northern Botswana
Full Text >>>
Spicing Up Commercial
Agriculture in Southwestern Uganda
Full Text >>>
ADF Project
Updates
Success Stories from Uganda and Botswana
Full Text >>>
News in Brief
Full Text >>>
Find
ADF on
the Web at: www.adf.gov
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Developing Stories
The World Quality
Council, a non-profit coordinating body that links 52 national quality
organizations from around the globe to enhance international cooperation
on product quality initiatives, has awarded ADF grantee
Mukono Vanilla, a cooperative society of
7,000 Ugandan vanilla farmers, its International Star Award in the Gold
Category. The award recognizes Mukono for producing the top quality of
cured vanilla beans worldwide. ADF’s grant to Mukono has provided the
cooperative with resources to train its members in vanilla agronomy and
credit management, helping it expand its supply base, enhance the export
quality of its product, double average production per farmer, and increase
farmers’ annual income by 128 percent.
 The
Kgetsi Ya Tsie Women’s Community Trust (KYT)[1] is an ADF grantee
working to provide women in rural communities across Botswana’s Tswapong Hills
with local income opportunities through the harvesting and
processing of local natural products – from oils and soaps, to natural
herbs and jams. Laboratory tests conducted at the University of Botswana
have confirmed that its marula oil is of the highest quality, arguably the
highest in the world. The marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea) is a
prominent feature of Africa’s mixed forest ecology from South Africa to
Ethiopia, and African communities have used its sweet, edible fruit –
which is rich in Vitamin C – as a food supplement for centuries. In recent
years, a number of community development projects in Botswana, Zimbabwe,
Namibia, and South Africa have begun harvesting and pressing oil from the
marula nut, which has an extremely low natural acidity relative to most
other pressed oils. KYT is producing and marketing marula oil and soap to
natural products distributors in southern Africa and, through Phytotrade
Africa, to cosmetic manufacturers and natural cooking oil producers in
Europe and North America. KYT purchases its marula nuts from its women
members, who receive about 75 percent of the sales revenue from most of
the trust’s product lines. All of KYT’s oil is hand-pressed at its Lerala
facility. For more information on how KYT is helping rural women in
Botswana find sustainable ways to harvest, process, and sell local
resources, go to
www.kgetsiyatsie.org.
[1] In
Setswana, Kgetsi Ya Tsie means "a bag of locusts." The trust's name, which
extols the value of community-wide effort, comes from the popular Setswana
saying, "It takes many hands to hold a bag of locusts" (i.e., it takes
many hands to tackle life's many challenges).
Above: Atamelang Disang (center) displays KYT's natural products on a bed
of marula nut flakes while Masego Maupi (L) and Doreen Phamelo (R) hoist
quality awards that KYT has won in regional competitions and trade fairs
for its marula oil. Photo by Bryan Callahan
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