NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Heifer International was awarded a Starbucks Foundation grant of $750,000 to help fund the Mbozi Farmer Livelihood Improvement Project in Tanzania, which will help improve livelihoods and quality of life for smallholder coffee growing communities in the East African country.

This grant is part of Starbucks comprehensive approach to ethical sourcing. To date, Starbucks has contributed $15 million in social projects to support farming communities around the world. The project will be part of our East Africa Dairy Development Project in Tanzania and will assist at least 5,000 smallholder coffee farmers and their families.

Heifer and Starbucks have collaborated in the past. In 2009, after CEO Howard Schultz visited smallholder coffee farmers in Rwanda, he heard the heartfelt requests from farmers that, if they had cows, they would have milk, better nutrition and income for their families. Starbucks employees rallied together to provide the cows these farmers wanted so desperately. Watch the inspiring video here.

As much as 90 percent of the population in the Mbozi District is engaged in coffee farming. As global coffee prices fluctuate, farmers often experience a significant need for income throughout the year that coffee production alone cannot meet.

Our project will provide some families with dairy heifers and bulls so that farmers can engage in dairy farming as a complementary activity that provides a diversified source of income for coffee farmers and evens out their year-round cash needs. Other families who already own cows will receive training on proper dairy management and cattle husbandry techniques to better position them for profitable enterprises, and the creation of a milk collection center will give larger dairy processors easier access to farmers’ milk.