Mar
06
2020

Agriculture and Food Security Forum - with Kasinthula Cane Growers

A forum on Agriculture and Food Security, with special guests from the Kasinthula Cane Growers Association in Malawi. Co-hosted by Scottish Fair Trade Forum

Event Details

Date: Friday, 6 March 2020

Time: 2.30 pm - 5 pm

Location: Edinburgh City Chambers, EH1 1YJ

About the event

Meeting minutes are available here.

Co-hosted by Scottish Fair Trade Forum and as part of their 'She Deserves Fairtrade Fortnight' campaign, the meeting explored the topics of Fairtrade, with a focus on women’s empowerment in agriculture and food security.

We were also delighted to welcome two special guests who are members of the Kasinthula Cane Growers Association (KCG) in Malawi.

  • Ms Ndiuzayani Zaya: the daughter of a sugar farmer and was supported by Fairtrade for both her primary and tertiary education. Find out more about her here.
  • Mr Aubrey Chilenje: a sugar farmer with KCG since 2005. Read more of his story here.

More information

  • Kasinthula Cane Growers’ Association (KCG), located in southern Malawi, is a smallholder sugar cane project that has been Fairtrade certified since 2002.
  • KCG supplies Divine Chocolate with sugar and we will be bringing along some Divine chocolate to taste at the meeting!
  • Fairtrade Fortnight is organised each year by the Fairtrade Foundation and is celebrated across the UK.
  • This year’s Fairtrade Fortnight (24 February to 8 March) campaign “She Deserves” aims to highlight the plight of women who grow commodity products such as cocoa and sugar. Women often carry out a lot of the work in farming communities but can be paid less than men and have fewer rights. Fairtrade Standards make sure that women farmers have a voice in their community and can participate in decision-making and advance to leadership roles to benefit the whole community.
  • This Fairtrade Fortnight, the Fairtrade Foundation will mainly explore the theme of female empowerment and living incomes using the example of cocoa. The UK chocolate industry is worth at least £4 billion annually but in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana where most of the world’s cocoa is grown, farmers are earning well below the extreme poverty line of around £1.40 per day.

About the hosts

The Scottish Fair Trade Forum works to help make Scotland a nation which is a global leader in challenging global poverty and recognises the dignity and rights of producers through a commitment to fairness in international trading.

The Scotland Malawi Partnership (SMP) is the national civil society network coordinating, supporting and representing the people-to-people links between our two nations. They represent a community of 109,000 Scots with active links to Malawi, with over 1,000 member organisations and key individuals.

21 Malawian Culture