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NexThought Monday: Coffee Talk (and Action): Sustainable Harvest’s Griswold on supply chain empathy and what’s brewing for smallholder farmers
The drive toward transparency and “empathy” has been David Griswold’s mission since creating Sustainable Harvest, a seller of fair trade coffee to the likes of Green Mountain and Whole Foods. This mission to inject more symmetry into the business has served Sustainable Harvest well. In 2013, the company closed $70 million in global sales. He spoke with NextBillion about what’s next.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Education
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Press Release: Meet the Winning Ideas of Greenpeace Challenge to find renewable irrigation systems for India
Greenpeace “A Watershed Moment in India” challenge, which was open from September 3rd, 2013, saw participation from over 1500 people across 58 countries, who created 256 designs for renewable energy powered, portable, affordable irrigation systems for small farmers in Bihar. Participants uploaded their designs to a web platform, where they were viewable by the public (including other competing teams) who commented on all designs and suggested improvements, which the designers took into consideration to iterate and adapt their designs.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- product design
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Why city life is unhealthy
The rapid increase in the number of urban inhabitants will be among the most important global health issues of the 21st century.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
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More weather index insurance for African smallholder farmers
Weather insurance is a financial product aiming to help African farmers manage the volatility of drought and other weather crises. This week (14 Jan), IFC (www.ifc.org) signed 2 grant agreements with MicroEnsure Ltd to make more index-based weather insurance available to small-scale farmers in Rwanda and Zambia. Index-based insurance pays out on the basis of agreed weather data, such as rainfall as measured being lower than an agreed level, and is more efficient risk management tool than traditional indemnity-based agricultural insurance, which runs up high transaction costs and premiums.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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A Whisky-Inspired Solution For Clean Drinking Water
With arsenic in their drinking water wells, Bangladeshi citizens suffer the "largest mass poisoning in history" every day. A new type of filter made from the leftovers from the distillation process could give them a convenient, safer water supply.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
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Incofin Investment Management endorses need for agricultural finance by launching new $200 million agRIF fund
Incofin Investment Management (IM) is seeking to raise around USD 200 million for its new agRIF fund which will focus on the unmet global demand for financial services that target smallholder farmers.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Small Farms, Big Funding Gap: Local bank financing for smallholder farmers meets only 3 percent of overall demand
New research reveals that local bank lending to smallholder farmers – which should be a main avenue for improving their access to finance – meets less than 3 percent of their estimated financing demand. This gap represents an obstacle to global poverty reduction efforts - and a compelling opportunity for buyers, lenders and other actors in the agricultural value chain.
- Categories
- Agriculture
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Tanzania Reaches Out to People Without Accounts
Tanzania wants to capture the 50% of the population who are unbanked by 2016 after the launch of the National Financial Inclusion Framework.
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa