Africa Eats’ mission is to lower hunger and eliminate poverty across Africa. Dropping post-harvest losses from 40% to 2% is one way to lower hunger. The other is increasing the incomes of farmers, which simultaneously and directly eliminates poverty.
On average, the bizi double the income of their farmers. The increases range from 60% for the honey aggregators to 400% for Goldenpot‘s women farmers and Rogathe Dairy‘s dairy farmers. Agro Supply sells seeds to farmers, selling far more than buying, but those high-quality seeds increase yields and that manages to grow 25,000+ farmers incomes by an average of 150%.
Looking deeper, East Africa Foods/Fruits (EAF) was studied by 60 Decibels to better understand its impacts on its 7,000+ farmers.
Below left are the incomes of 257 of those farmers, mostly those growing potatoes and bananas. Below right shows for just over a third of the farmers, less than half of their income comes from EAF.
The expectation is that increased incomes increase quality of life. The next set of survey questions prove that expectation true. Not for 10% of the farmers, but 14% of the farmers were already earning over the median income in Tanzania.
How? Improved farming practices that led to increased yields, coupled with a company that consistently buys the farming outputs:
Looking directly at hunger and poverty, the farmers have both more food to eat and more savings:
And in case you are wondering whether East Africa Foods (or any of the other bizi) are profitable by exploiting these farmers, the answer is definitively no. 91% of the farmers consider the price paid for their crops to be fair, and again note that 14% earlier said their income is unchanged as someone else was buying their crops for the same price before EAF.
This report matches all the anecdotal stories we’ve received from the bizi over the years. We’ll share more quantitative reports in the future as they are generated.
