MEDA partners show Filipino farmers ways to profit from growing beans
Socially conscious chocolate
Mennonite salmon fishers
Farming hickory oil
When starting a business is a bad idea
Challenges for pastors, business owners
Global demand for chocolate is increasing steadily every year. A sector that generated $58 billion US in 2021 is projected to pass $88 billion by 2031.
The health benefits of dark chocolate are contributing to surging demand. Dark chocolate which has at least a 70 percent cacao content is said to have many health benefits. The product reportedly increases the body’s serotonin levels, improves mood, and reduces the release of the cortisol stress hormone. It is also rich in vital minerals and flavonoids, substances linked to improved heart and brain health.
Edgemar Ortiz, an agricultural technician at Malagos Chocolate’s Puentespina Farm, bags cacao buds to protect them from pests.
However, the Philippines relies on imports to meet demand. Filipino farmers grow 10,000 metric tons of cacao a year. Imports are five times that much — 50,000 metric tons.
Farmer Susan Uyanguren — pictured on the cover of this issue and in a story that begins on page nine — had been skeptical of the work required to keep her cacao trees healthy. Due to low commodity prices, she gave up on the crop for two years.
Affiliation with the Kennemer Foods processing firm, a MEDA partner, gives her better prices for her cacao beans. It also provides incentives to allow other trees to keep growing on her farm, removing carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in the soil.
The incentives include organic fertilizer, pruning shears
that reduce the strain of tree maintenance, and additional tree seedlings if she has room for them.
MEDA’s Resilience and Inclusion through Investment for Sustainable Agriculture (RIISA) project works in the Davao region of southern Philippines. The Davao region supplies more than 80 percent of the country’s cacao production.
MEDA’s partners in the project assist farmers in a variety of ways. These include accessing inclusive finance, gaining market access and greater profitability, integrating gender equity, human rights, and environmental sustainability, and strengthening the cacao market system.
The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada and donations from MEDA supporters. Its project impact is that more prosperous female and male small-scale farmers will contribute to economic growth across Mindanao island.
The gender, environment, social, and governance evaluation lenses applied to this project will
improve the financial performance of various players in the cacao sector.
Financial firms will enjoy higher investment returns for their shareholders. Small businesses will have several competitive advantages, including more cost efficiency, easier access to capital, and finding it easier to hire and retain staff.
What’s the difference between these two crops? Much of it has to do with how the beans are handled after they are harvested, apparently. Cacao beans — used to make dark chocolate — are minimally processed, while cocoa beans are highly processed. The main difference is the processing method, which alters the beans’ nutritional value. Cacao beans have an earthy, bitter taste.
Ghana delayed delivering 370,000 metric tons of cocoa in the previous 2023/24 season to the current one due to poor output, the “Semafor Africa” newsletter reports. “Production of the crop, one of the country’s main exports, has dropped to a two-decade low,” a parliamentary committee in Accra, the nation’s capital, was told.
Ghana is the world’s secondlargest cocoa producer, but its production has faced challenges in recent years. “Analysts say unlicensed gold miners are encroaching on farmland for the crop, contributing to the fall in production, while climate change and tree disease have also been blamed for the lower yields.” .
Wishing churches functioned less like businesses
Pastors would be better equipped to build community if they did not face so much pressure to create and maintain programs, Vickie Landis Rentsel says. By Nathan Good
A hickory oil renaissance?
Levi Geyer seeks to build a business that will encourage people to cook with hickory oil, once popular with indigenous groups in the US and Canada. His Fancy Twig farm forages for raw materials but wants to plant more hickory trees as demand grows. By Sierra Ross Richer
In support of sustainable chocolate
Auro Chocolate works with Filipino farmers to meet the growing demand for organic cacao beans.
14 When not to start a business
Sometimes the best counsel a consultant can give a budding entrepreneur is to explain why their business idea is unlikely to succeed, Brian Humphrey argues in an excerpt from his book, “The Wages of Peace.”
17
Fishing for a living?
Jake and Levi Kropf head to Alaska each June and spend July catching premium salmon, which they sell across the US. By Marshall V. King
Businesswoman wishes churches functioned less like businesses.
By Nathan Good
Pastors and business owners face many of the same pressures, needs, and concerns.
That is Vickie Landis Rentsel’s perspective. She knows the ins and outs of leadership in church and business.
The daughter of an entrepreneur, who was also a church leader, Rentsel grew up with a strong passion for the church.
As a teen, she felt God calling her to ministry. Her youth pastor encouraged her and her boyfriend to attend Bible college.
Her dad questioned the value of a Bible college degree. Rentsel’s response, “I do not know what I will do with my life. Of all the things I could study, the thing I know for sure that I’m going to use is the Bible.” Her dad could not argue with that.
Several weeks before college, she and her boyfriend broke up. She continued with college, earning a dual major in Bible, Christian Education, and Camping Ministries.
Still unsure of what God had for her; she became a recruiter at
the college. Gaining experience in admissions counseling, she pursued a master’s in counseling and psychology.
This led her to work as a mental health specialist in the Air Force Reserve and for Delaware Valley Mental Health Foundation. However, these career paths did not allow her to integrate her faith. “I knew, on a core level, that if I could not integrate faith in the healing process, if I couldn’t help people find hope in Jesus, it wasn’t going to work for me,” she said.
Disillusioned and uncertain, experiencing what she calls a “quarter-life crisis,” she dropped out of the master’s program a semester before graduating, moved to Florida, got married, and started managing a surf shop.
The struggles continued, as her husband couldn’t find work.
One weekend, her parents came to visit. Her dad was considering next steps for his businesses. She had tried her hand at insurance, his main business, and had no interest. However, he had started a small business selling real estate. Out of options, she quit her job and moved east with her husband.
While her life seemed disjointed, none of these experiences were wasted. God was laying a foundation.
When training for ministry, she resisted taking her salary from ministry work. Stepping into the real estate business, she realized she could earn a living and minister to others.
She was encouraged by the Apostle Paul’s model. While he is known for starting many churches and quickly growing the Christian community, he earned a living as a tentmaker.
People seek out real estate agents at pivotal moments in their lives: the death of a parent or spouse, marriage, divorce, and growing a family with young children. Rentsel had finally found a career where she could integrate her faith into her work in a natural way.
She can engage with clients in key transition moments in their lives. Her work and business provide daily opportunities to minister to people on a deep level.
David Boshart
She was open about her struggles with work and career. One evening, an employee in the shop told her about an assistant manager position at an apartment complex. Taking the job, she soon transferred to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
“I am able to be in stressful situations with clients and have a source of hope. I show what it
looks like to stand on the promises of God. Speaking freely about that, I let them know I’m praying for them because I really am.”
She had finally found a home. At the same time, there were struggles at home.
During a difficult season of life, she turned to the church for support. She found the opposite.
She has had good and supportive relationships with pastors throughout her life. But rather than being a community, her experience of church was that it was more focused on programs.
Because of her skills, call to ministry, passion, and position in business, walking into church had become a job. She always needed to do things or fund things. However, the church tended to drain her rather than fill her up.
In a key moment in her life when she needed a supportive church community, she was wounded and hurt instead.
Ryan Cobb’s research found similar problems. He was curious about wealthy people’s perspective on church. Cobb discovered three main themes through an informal interview process.
1) Wealthy people wish they could talk about faith and church with their pastors without being asked for money.
2) Wealthy people are happy to donate a comparatively large amount but wish pastors would encourage more balanced congregational giving.
3) Wealthy people understand congregational process, but if a need is slowed down by policy or procedure, they are also happy to meet needs on their own, apart from the church’s work.
These statements capture some of Rentsel’s story. Though she had contributed so much to her church, when she needed them most, they let her down. Hurt by
the experience, she left her church feeling there must be a better way.
Nearly two decades after leaving the institutional church, Rentsel is more committed to the way of Jesus in Christian community than ever.
All her staff are invited to pray together every Monday morning. She started, led, and participated in several Bible studies. She started a ministry for vulnerable and at-risk women. The tagline of this ministry, Rest Connection, is “A Community That Helps Each Other.”
Rentsel left the institutional church to create church as she thinks it should be. She responded to a community need by creating an innovative form of church that emphasizes rest, relationship, and authenticity over structure and programs.
Her deep love for the church and pastors comes through in conversation. She still has pastors who speak into her life and ministry. She oftentimes goes into traditional church buildings to speak to congregations.
She is not antagonistic towards institutional expressions of church, but longs for it to be more than programs and services.
In her experience, most business leaders are over-extended and tired. They need a place where they can be honest and real. They long for a community without an agenda.
“We’ve chosen to make Sunday a Sabbath. The body of Christ for me is not in a building. I go into those buildings, I speak, and I engage, but most of my engagement is outside the walls,” she says.
She wishes there was less pressure on pastors to create and maintain programs. Pastors and business leaders face many of the same pressures, she believes.
They have many forces around them sucking from them rather than filling them up. There is intense pressure on pastors to fill positions;
to get the church’s work done. From her perspective, most of that work does not need to be done. Churches have learned a lot about running like a business in the Western world, especially in North America. But at what cost?
The church is called to love people. As a culture, we are busy, and the church has become busy. For Rentsel, the answer is slowing down and seeking God together. By cutting programs and creating community, perhaps the church can function less like a business, and more like the church. .
Nathan Good is a Pennsylvania pastor, transition adviser and personal leadership coach.
Volume 55, Issue 2
March April 2025
The Marketplace (ISSN 0199-7130) is published bi-monthly by Mennonite Economic Development Associates, 342 N. Queen St., Warehouse D, Lancaster, PA 17603. Periodicals postage paid at Newton, KS 67114. Lithographed in U.S.A. Copyright 2025 by MEDA.
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Cover photo of Susan Uyanguren by Mike Strathdee
By Sierra Ross Richer
Levi Geyer presses the green button on his expeller oil press and a high-pitched whine fills the room. With a wooden stick, he stirs the crushed hickory nuts to the bottom of the machine’s hopper, where a rotating screw sucks them in.
After a few moments, crumbly brown byproduct spills from the end, and liquid oozes from small holes in the sides. A drop of thick, light brown oil splatters onto the collection pan below.
This is the first hickory oil he has produced from nuts harvested in 2024. And the first oil produced in Geyer’s processing facility in
Johnson County, Iowa.
The 25-year-old farmer lets out a whoop. This isn’t the end of the process: over the next few months, about 70 gallons of oil will be pressed, filtered, bottled, and sold.
After three years of research and preparation, and three months spent foraging over a thousand gallons of yellowbud hickory nuts, this is a monumental moment for Fancy Twig Farm, the company Geyer started in February of 2024.
If it catches on, Geyer believes hickory oil has the potential to reshape the North American food system, making it more sustainable
for both people and the land. His business embodies an alternative farming model inspired by Jesus’ mandate to love your neighbor as yourself.
Geyer grew up on a farm in Johnson County. “I only decided I wanted to farm after I learned studying environmental science [at Eastern Mennonite University] how big the connection is between agriculture and sustainability,” he said.
Iowa is one of the most productive farming states in the United States, with 85 percent of land dedicated to agriculture. According to the Iowa Farm Bureau,
the state leads the nation in the production of corn, pigs, and eggs, as well as being one of the top three producers of soybeans.
But a study by the University of Iowa’s Office of Sustainability and the Environment found that 99 percent of the food consumed in the state is imported.
Most crops produced in Iowa are grown using industrial agricultural methods. The food available to consumers at grocery stores is imported from all over the globe.
The most commonly used cooking oil–vegetable oil–comes from industrially farmed corn and soybeans. Other options, including olive, coconut, palm, canola, and sunflower seed oils, are generally imported from other countries. The environmental impacts of animal fats, like butter and lard vary greatly, depending on how the animals are raised.
Geyer wanted to find a way to produce staple foods without harming the environment. His quest took him to the wild edges of civilization where native trees still grow, planted by squirrels in fencerows and woodlots. He found an oil crop that was popular among indigenous groups across the eastern US and Canada but has been completely ignored for over a century.
Native to a large portion of North America, yellowbuds (also called “bitternut hickories”) are adaptable to many soil types and thrive from Florida to Minnesota.
Samuel Thayer, an author and world-renowned expert on foraging for wild foods, has been pressing hickory oil for over two decades. Thayer is at the forefront of a movement to repopularize the indigenous food source.
“I am excited about hickory
oil,” Thayer said, “because as a local, native tree crop that is easy to grow without pesticides or herbicides, it is a highly sustainable food source.”
Thayer became the first commercial supplier of hickory oil in the United States in 2015, selling oil from nuts he foraged near his home in Northern Wisconsin. A handful of others, including Geyer, have followed in his footsteps. So far, they all harvest by hand from wild trees and process their oil in small batches.
Records of indigenous food sources before colonization are scarce and often incomplete. But, Thayer said, “...We know from archaeology that hickory nuts were an extremely important food in prehistoric times (the most common food remains found in archaeological sites in the eastern US).”
And, he said, “what we have amply documented… is that hickory oil was widely manufactured by Natives, and was traded to whites.”
Yellowbud nuts are bitter if eaten whole, but the astringent tannins are removed during pressing and what is left is a mildtasting oil with similar qualities to olive oil.
Thayer doesn’t know of any indigenous people making hickory oil today. But Geyer and other producers are attempting to build a food system that is similar to that of their indigenous predecessors.
Geyer learned about hickory oil during his final semester of college
in the 2019 book “Trees of Power: Ten Essential Arboreal Allies” by Akiva Silver. He did some research and discovered Thayer, whom he emailed with a pressing question: Why weren’t more people making hickory oil?
Thayer’s response came right away: “Very few people would actually collect hickory nuts as if it were a job.”
But if Geyer was willing to do it, he could take his nuts to Wisconsin to press using Thayer’s machine.
“I went out the next morning and through the snow, I dug out 12 gallons of yellowbud hickory nuts in January,” Geyer said. “Then I sent him an email back with a picture of the nuts and was like, ‘I got 12 gallons of nuts, when can I come up?’”
Thayer kept his end of the bargain. In February, he helped Geyer press his first three quarts of oil. Over the next two years, Geyer scouted his area for more trees.
He doesn’t own land yet, and while he has begun planting trees on other people’s properties it will be at least a decade before he can begin harvesting nuts from trees he planted. Instead, Geyer visited conservation areas and public parks in his area to locate trees. He knocked on his neighbors’ doors, asking if he could harvest in their yards, pastures, and woodlots.
The more time Geyer spent among the hickory trees, the more he learned about them and the ecosystems they inhabit. “I’ve learned a lot of the species that grow in the forest,” he said. “I know which ones are supposed to be there and I know the ones that are not benefiting the forest, so I’ll dig out the ones that aren’t.”
“Conservation and production don’t have to be (mutually) exclusive,” he said. “You can have a quote-unquote ‘natural’ area and also be getting a lot of food from it.”
Geyer said that since starting his business, he has become more aware of weather patterns, soil conditions, and wildlife populations. When you farm the way he does, “You become very much more involved in the ecosystem and connected to it both for your sustenance and finances,” he said.
He has also become more dependent on his relationships with his neighbors. “I’ve developed a lot of connections,” Geyer said. “There’s now a cooperative land management going on.”
This year, Geyer will be the top producer of hickory oil in the country. He will sell his oil at the
Iowa City Farmer’s Market and to other customers in his area. “I’m trying to stay very local so people know who is producing their hickory oil and know where it comes from and (can) even try producing it themselves,” he said.
Geyer started his business without land and with little capital, yet he’s already able to make a profit. His goal isn’t to grow his business indefinitely but to provide an example for others to follow and be a resource for his community.
Jesus said to “love your neighbor,” Geyer said. He believes that “Loving each other means putting each others’ needs first.”
“I want Fancy Twig farm to be focused on meeting people’s needs,” he said. That means not only producing healthy food, but
also addressing the needs for community and a closer connection to food sources.
He encourages others to collect nuts by offering to do the pressing for them, keeping a third of the oil as his payment. This is one way to make hickory oil accessible to people who can’t afford the going rate of $240 a gallon. And it’s a way to get more people involved in producing their own food, which Geyer believes will create a more resilient, local food system.
“I want to get a lot more people involved in harvesting hickory nuts,” he said. “I would love for hickory oil to expand in that way, with other small producers existing, instead of the prior trend of larger farmers taking over the industry and pushing small farmers out.” .
If the Philippines is to replace imported cacao beans with domestic production, it needs farmers like Susan Uyanguren on board.
Not long ago, she did not view the main ingredient of chocolate production as a viable crop. “We abandoned this for two years because the price was too low,” she told visitors to her seven-hectare (17.3 acre) farm during a September visit. “In the Philippines, the farmer is not rich.”
She farms in a hilly area in the Paradis Embak Village, and Saloy, Paquibato District of the Philippines’ Davao region.
Over 70 percent of her farm has five distinct varieties — clones in the industry jargon — of cacao trees intercropped with coconut and falcata trees.
Falcata trees are good companions for cacao, as falcata leaves fix nitrogen in the soil, providing natural fertilizer.
However, these fast-growing trees are often harvested for their wood after eight to ten years on average. Falcata wood is a core material for many kinds of furniture, and a decorative plywood or melamine veneer is attached on top.
A partnership with processor Kennemer Foods through MEDA’s RIISA project brings better prices for Uyanguren’s cacao and inkind support for letting her falcata trees grow and provide carbon
sequestration. “We will not cut down these, because they protect the cacao.”
Kennemer is a Philippine agri-
Resilience and Inclusion through Investment in Sustainable Agrikultura (RIISA) is MEDA’s first project in the Philippines.
RIISA is a six-year, $6.5 million (Canadian) initiative funded by Global Affairs Canada and MEDA supporters.
The project focuses on strengthening the country’s cacao sector. It provides incentives so small-scale farmers can integrate and address several important issues. These include gender, environment, social, and governance considerations.
This work is centered in the Davao region, on the southern island of Mindanao. This region has been named the Philippines’ cacao and chocolate capital.
RIISA works with more than 25,000 members of small-scale farm households, 15 cacao cooperatives, 14 small- to medium-sized businesses, and one financial institution. It has set a goal of creating decent work for 3,930 people, mainly women and youth.
Most small-scale farmers earn less than 15,000 pesos ($364.05 Canadian) a year from cacao production. Other crops, such as coconut and durian fruit, provide much of their income.
By planting fruit and other trees, farmers can generate carbon credits to sell for additional income or barter for farm inputs.
The Philippines imports much of the cacao needed to meet domestic demand from
business company specializing in growing, sourcing, and trading highquality crops such as cacao beans. Farmers are paid with inputs to
maintain trees. Kennemer provides 30 kg (66.14 pounds) of organic fertilizer per hectare, pruning shears, and free seedlings if a
Photo by Mike Strathdee
Indonesia.
Demand is increasing much more quickly than production. This is particularly true for ethically and sustainably sourced products. The RIISA project focuses on increasing the yield cacao farmers can get from their trees.
Farmers who improve their yield from the current average of 500 grams (17.6 ounces) per tree per year to the industry standard of two kilograms (70.5 ounces) would increase their family income by at least 500 pesos ($35.34 Canadian) per tree.
The project also tries to bring new and younger workers into agriculture. The average Filipino farmer is 56 years old.
“Very few young people are engaged in agriculture,” says Roderick Valones, deputy country director of the RIISA project.
MEDA is taking steps to provide cooperatives and business partners with incentives to engage more youth in agriculture. “If there’s more youth being interested in taking leadership roles, then it’s also helping the economy, not only at the business level,” he said.
“You’re generating more employment, (and) you’re generating more opportunities for the youth.”
MEDA provides financial incentives. Its business service providers offer mentoring services.
MEDA works with several Filipino business service providers. It takes this approach because the needs of cooperatives and small- to medium-sized businesses vary. .
farmer has space for more trees. Kennemer distributes 60 percent of the value of carbon credits to farmers as inputs, and it receives the other 40 percent.
Cacao farming can be tedious. The trees need more pruning and fertilization than other crops.
MEDA’s RIISA team has
sponsored a demonstration with cooperatives to show farmers practices that lessen labor and input costs, resulting in increased income.
Biodegradable cellophane is used around cacao pods to protect them from bug borers.
About 800 acres of the district’s 60,000 acres, owned by 500
Auro Chocolate is committed to producing sustainable chocolate and improving the lives of Filipino farmers who produce the certified organic cacao beans used by the firm.
“The whole community is our partner,” says Julinee Garzon, the chocolate firm’s staff rep in the Davao region. “Whatever their cacao production, we purchase from them.”
Garzon made the comments to a MEDA group visiting the Saloy Organic Farm Association in September, in Purok Pag asa, Barangay Saloy, Davao City.
The firm started meeting with prospects, potential partners, organized farmers, and cooperatives in 2015, she said. “We really started manufacturing chocolate in 2017 and mass production was in 2019.”
That year, one of their farmer partners was honored among the top 20 producers of premium cacao beans in France’s Salon de Chocolate. The Salon de Chocolate’s chocolate fair bills itself as the world’s largest event dedicated entirely to chocolate, cocoa, and pastry.
In 2023, the Saloy Organic Farmers Association was honored in the Cacao of Excellence global competition. Its cacao beans were judged to be among the world’s top 50 finest.
Auro now processes a metric ton (about 2,205 pounds) of cacao beans daily at its factory in Laguna province. Laguna is southeast of Metro Manila, several hours north of Mindanao island where the farmers grow cacao.
Auro’s chocolate is available in 67 countries, she said.
Auro helped organize the Saloy cooperative and now provides seedlings
farmers, were included in a carbon sequestration project. A biomass survey used global positioning system (GPS) equipment to measure the diameter, height, canopy, and biomass underground.
MEDA provided a grant so that farmers in the area could be surveyed.
for the farmers to plant. The company chooses the cacao varieties that the farmers grow, introducing good agricultural practices, “and even the selection of the premium beans.”
Its premium products are made from premium-priced beans. Auro buys beans at a 10 to 15 percent premium to world market prices.
Auro does not own any cacao production, Garzon said. “If we own our orchards, what happens to the small farmers?”
The Saloy farmers started a threeyear conversion process to get organic certification in 2019. “The beans here are very small, but the quality and the flavor that we perceived is unique,” she said.
The farmers’ yield has increased by up to four times what it was two years ago. MEDA was a “big help” for Auro, assisting with the organic certification process and empowering women farmers, she said.
Auro also engages in crowd farming. Crowd farming is a platform that allows customers to adopt trees from participating partner farmers. In exchange the customers receive part of the harvest in the form of chocolates.
That program “provides assistance for the farmers in the cultivation of their trees, and an incentive provided by Auro Chocolate for their cacao.” .
“That’s a really big help for us, and also the farmers,” spokesman Mark Joseph Ibabo said. “Doing the surveys, and also the community engagement, is not cheap. But once everything is established, and already written down, that’s the easy part of continuing with the sustainability event.”
Farms participating in the sequestration project are audited every two years. Kennemer is also encouraging farmers to plant some of 30 varieties of indigenous trees, including teak, on the boundaries of their farms. That biomass will also be added to the farmers’ inkind carbon revenue.
Kennemer, which provides microfinance, works with farmers to implement several eco-solutions,
including restoration projects, reforestation, and community livelihood initiatives.
Ibabo has been working with the land in the area for three years.
Farmers in the Paquibato cooperative have seen considerable benefits from their relationship with Kennemer. Kennemer provides a guaranteed market for their production, something they did not previously have.
Many farmers in the co-op work 1.5 to three acres of land. A few have seven to 14 acres because the government has recognized their indigenous, ancestral rights to the land.
Before Kennemer began working with them, each farmer had to travel to a town to sell
cacao beans, often at poor prices. Kennemer consolidates beans from various farmers in their village, at a better price.
Selling to Kennemer can increase farmers’ profit by 50 percent, as they do not have to bear transportation costs or the labor of drying beans.
Kennemer prefers to purchase “wet” beans, as they can ferment these to meet the specific needs of various processor buyers.
It is difficult for co-op members to find other laborers to help them, as their neighbors are all busy with their own farms. Drying beans is also a time-sensitive task. Once cacao pods are broken, the beans need to be set out for drying that same day. .
Cooperatives, groups of small-scale farmers, are responsible for much of the cacao production in the Philippines’ Davao region. Cooperatives take different approaches to maximizing their income. Members of the Saloy Organic Farmers’ Association (see pg. 11) , grow their beans for Auro Chocolate. The Maragusan Multipurpose Cooperative processes member beans. It also operates a small chocolate factory, shown in these photos.
by Brian Humphreys
I have managed both domestic and international entrepreneurship training programs, and the conversation is different in each context. In many communities around the world, entrepreneurship more easily makes sense.
In a more remote area, you can identify a product or service unavailable in your local community. You can do the math to figure out what it would cost to transport any goods from a city to your community, how much profit you hope to earn per item or service, what the ongoing demand might be, and, therefore, what price you would sell the product for locally compared to what you purchase it for in bulk.
compound of homes with their family and can rely on them while they work on a business.
Western countries are more fully developed economies, and much of this low-hanging fruit has already been picked. Most products and services can be delivered to your door for low prices.
Lots of people are trying to build entrepreneurial ventures as supplemental income generators. The other factor is time. It might take years to create a product, build a brand, and establish yourself with sufficient profit that this could be a full-time job.
This is especially hard to do in an individualist, fully developed economy. In more collectively oriented communities or contexts, individuals might live in a
In many Western economies, you must figure out how to pay rent and utilities and buy food each month regardless of your context and long-term plans. This often requires working multiple part-time jobs, a full-time job, and a side gig.
In this context, where is the time and energy for building a business to profitability, which might require full-time effort? Much entrepreneurship training is helping people understand what it really takes to do this, allowing them to go through a grieving process and then helping them figure out a more lucrative traditional career pathway.
Sometimes, a hobby turns
into an income-generating activity, but that is hard to predict and depend on as a solution for a struggling household.
A nonprofit I worked with was awarded funding to get a small business/ entrepreneurship loan up and running with specialized financial coaching and planning. The screening process involved working through costs, demand, and potential income from entrepreneurs’ ideas.
A business plan specialist met with entrepreneurs to talk about their business plans, and I processed the applications for funding and worked through the financial plans.
One day, I met with a grandmother who loved to bake cupcakes and was about to sign a three-year lease at a neighborhood commercial space that kept being vacated. It was alarming that the space was frequently occupied and vacated, but we worked through the math. Given her expenses, the lease, and the cost of making cupcakes, she would have to bake and sell around three thousand cupcakes per month at a fairly high price.
She burst into tears, realizing she could not do that. She imagined a more leisurely hang-out space where people would build community and occasionally buy a cupcake or coffee.
She was caring for her three young grandchildren and struggling to make it work. She imagined this cupcake store would be a safe place for her family and an income generator.
We continued to work through the numbers and plan, including a longer build-up for her business that did not require that expensive lease. In later meetings, we worked on a more traditional career plan that would guarantee needed income in the near term.
When entrepreneurship is an appropriate strategy, I am a tremendous advocate for it, so we need to support entrepreneurs and make our local cities support them. Homeboy Industries in Compton, California, has been the gold standard for this work.
Manchester Bidwell in Pittsburgh is a more expensive iteration but a good example to
learn from. Kiva is a great way to fund domestic and international entrepreneurs who work with local organizations.
Tacoma has a famous glass museum downtown and a thriving glass-blowing industry. A local nonprofit trains youth to become glassblowers and sells their work around the community. Entrepreneurship can be fun and impactful, but having realistic expectations and goals is important. .
Brian Humphreys is a community economic development professional who is the director and chair of the School of Global Studies at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington. This article is excerpted from his book “The Wages of Peace: How to Confront Economic Inequality and Love Your Neighbor Well (Herald Press, 2024).” All rights reserved. Used with permission.
I want to share a concern that relates to a comment made by a speaker at (MEDA’s) 2024 Convention, and an understanding that has unfortunately been perpetuated in a lot of church and biblical teaching.
In dialogue with David Boshart, Steve Brenneman is quoted as saying that he struggles to accept Christ’s teaching in the Beatitudes, about the meek inheriting the earth. Quote: “It’s tough to be an entrepreneur and be meek,” (Jan 2025 issue, pg. 17).
Unfortunately, like so many, Steve misunderstands the teaching of the Beatitudes.
Jesus was not telling the audience then and us now that these are characteristics or qualities to try to be or to become.
Rather, in speaking to an oppressed, struggling, somewhat lost people, Jesus was bringing them the good news of the
Kingdom of God.
He was initiating the upsidedown Kingdom, where those who had been at the bottom of the social order could hear good news. Rather than being oppressed, downtrodden, and overall missing out, they would be blessed within the Kingdom of God. There was good news for the meek, the poor, the mournful, those desiring righteousness, etc.
Those not fitting those descriptions already were blessed in so many ways. Just apparently as Steve is.
So, Steve is not being called upon to be meek but rather he can know that the Kingdom of God is good news for those who the world sees as losers. As an entrepreneur, he too can bring that good news to the meek by sharing in the purveyance of the good news of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. It is sad for me to know that
this wrong understanding of the Beatitudes is still being taught and laying an unnecessary burden on many who seek to be Christ followers.
Thanks for the ministry of MEDA and The Marketplace.
Be blessed as you live out the joy of the Kingdom of God on earth. .
Ross D. Collingwood Salem, OR
Changing weather patterns are making mangos difficult to grow in some areas where they have long thrived and facilitating cultivation in areas where that was previously viewed as not possible.
The online “Grist” publication recently ran an article using the mango movement as an example of how farmers embrace new crops as the world warms.
Farmers in northeastern Sicily who historically grew olives and lemons are switching to mangos. Avocado trees are also replacing olive trees in several parts of Italy.
Before the end of this century, parts of the United Kingdom may quit growing oats and wheat, turning instead to soy, chickpeas, and grapes.
Mangos, which are grown in 120 nations, are well-adapted to subtropical and tropical areas. That has led some farmers in southwest Greece to experiment with the luscious fruit.
Erratic rainfall, hurricanes, and excessive heat have hurt mango tree productivity in some regions.
To read the full article, visit: https://bit.ly/4hqgDk6 .
By Marshall V. King
Their boat is called “Rumspringa.”
Brothers Jake and Levi Kropf and their cousin Ben Martin aren’t fish out of water in Bristol Bay, Alaska.
Yet it’s also not common for several Mennonite kids from Souderton, Pennsylvania, to end up with a fishing boat, haul in sockeye
salmon, and operate a direct-toconsumer business selling via a network of friends and family.
The boat’s name, which describes the period of “running around” before an Amish teen or young adult joins the church, indicates their Mennonite ties. The first summer Rumspringa was on
the water, a fisherman charged up to meet them. He was from Kansas and understood what was behind the name.
The Kropfs’ venture started when both Kropfs were young men and recent graduates of Goshen College. The brothers had grown up on about 40 acres near
Photos courtesy Salmon To You
Souderton with their cousin Ben next door becoming like another brother. An actual older brother is a doctor, which Levi said is a saner profession than fishing.
After college, a friend Jake met in Montana needed deckhands on a fishing boat in Bristol Bay near Nanek, Alaska. Jake and Levi both went in the summer of 2007.
“I had no idea what I was getting into,” said Jake. “It was a pretty crazy experience. Just the amount of work and the hours of work and the weather and all of it was just kind of overwhelming but in a good way.”
They were hooked and went back the next nine years, with Ben joining them along the way.
The trio learned values as they grew up Mennonite, which have helped them as they work together. “The sense of community and work ethic was probably the biggest thing that factored in,” said Jake.
“Being able to work with Levi and Ben and knowing we all grew up the same way and — everyone was on the same page with
Salmon has become one of the world’s most popular fish.
The value of salmon grew 120 percent from 2012 to 2021, and the volume of sales rose 45 percent, according to the trade website Salmon Business. Global salmon production will increase by another 40 percent by 2033, according to the Norwegian seafood consultancy Kontali. Europe, particularly Norway, produces what’s known as Atlantic-raised salmon, where many of the fish are raised in floating pens and fed a steady diet of other ocean organisms and antibiotics.
Even in Alaska, production is on the rise. The 2023 harvest was approximately
230.2 million fish, up 43 percent from 2022, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. A total of 51.8 million sockeye were caught, including the type that Levi and Jake Kropf, and Ben Martin catch and sell.
Salmon is sought out for its omega-3 fatty acids and health benefits. Wildcaught Alaskan salmon tends to be firmer, and some say it has more health benefits. The salmon from the Kropfs is rosy red and touted as “sushi grade.” It is possible to thaw the frozen salmon and slice it for use in sushi rolls or bowls.
It’s also amazing in other preparations, such as slow-roasted filets, grilled with lemon and butter, or even smoked. .
however we did stuff, and it made working together a lot easier than it has been with other people.”
Ten years ago, Jake bought a 32-foot boat of his own, with Levi and Ben joining him as deckhands. All three do construction when they’re not fishing and Levi, now 40, is a landlubber again. “I stopped fishing two years ago. It was just too much, too much for me to fit in, going away for a month in the summer. But Ashley, my wife, has sort of taken over doing Instagram and helping Jake with some of the back-end stuff. And so it’s, it’s grown. It’s hopefully going to grow some more. There’s a lot of potential,” said Levi.
In June, the crew heads to Nanek and gets ready for about four weeks on the water in July. They’ll live in a shipping container converted into an apartment as they prepare the nets, other equipment, and the boat for the season. They stage food barrels on the shore for them to pick up as they’re fishing.
A crew of four on the boat trolls with a gill net that runs about 50 feet below the surface and then they haul up the salmon with mechanical help (unless there’s a breakdown and they pull up the nets by hand.) Toward the end of the season, they have to sort out more chum, the least valuable of Alaska’s five salmon varieties. That’s sold separately from the sockeye. (King, coho, and pink salmon aren’t common in Bristol Bay.)
In the managed fishery, about 1,500 boats are allowed access to the bay. They are all after the wildcaught salmon and communicate where the salmon may be on a given day. “You have four weeks where the boats are in the water to essentially make your nut for the year,” said Levi.
The catches are sold to processing plants for sale elsewhere in the world. A few years into
fishing, they started buying some back to sell to family and friends.
In the last two decades, they’ve caught about two million pounds of fish. Now they sell about 20,000 pounds a year through their network. Their website, salmontoyou. com helps manage the sales.
A mix of relatives and friends receive shipments of frozen salmon and then distribute filets and portions to those who buy via the website. Prices vary slightly because of shipping and market variability.
The salmon they catch ends up in Seattle, Portland, and Missoula, Montana. But then it also goes to Goshen, Indiana; Asheville, North Carolina; and Souderton, Pennsylvania. “The farther east it goes, the more expensive it is,” said Jake.
Jake, who’s now 45, never expected to be this kind of fisherman. “That’s kind of one of those things I’ve looked back on and scratched my head a bit. I wasn’t expecting my career path to go down this one. But it’s been pretty interesting and frustrating and rewarding and, I mean, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship,” he said.
The fishing season is short and can be grueling. One season, they had a spell of 50 hours without sleep because the fish were plentiful. When the weather is bad, the seas are rough, or equipment breaks, the work isn’t fun.
“A good bit of the time you’re just wet,” said Jake. “You’re wearing rain gear, but you get sweaty and you get soaked through. And then, there’s water everywhere, obviously.”
Levi added, “You get through and you learn. You learn how to get out of trouble, but you also learn how to mentally stay in it.”
They endure those times and wonder why they came out for another season. “But then you
get those magical days where you have the afternoon off, or it’s nice weather, and a bunch of boats tie up together and you’re hanging out with your buddies, and you’re barbecuing fish on the back deck. Wow. There’s times like that when it’s amazing.”
Levi’s spirituality brings into focus the stewardship and connection with nature they have doing this work. “We’re taking something from the earth, but trying to leave enough to keep it going,” said Levi.
“I think my spiritual connection to the world and to God, whatever God is, exists in
nature and on the boat. There’s not a lot between you and what’s going on out there, and there’s times where you feel very small, and that’s pretty special for me.”
It’s also special to be able to share the bounty with others.
“We’re not just selling something to make money. We’re selling a great product that we really believe in from a fishery that has been managed really well and is sustaining itself. It’s really cool,” said Levi. .
Marshall V. King is a writer and journalist based in Goshen, Indiana. He has been a food writer since 2000. His email newsletter/blog is hungrymarshall.substack.com.
Wide-ranging tariffs proposed by US President Donald Trump are likely to have unintended consequences that will harm US businesses and consumers alike, American experts who study tariffs predict.
That was the consensus view of a panel discussion by the Shorenstein Center.
Importers, manufacturing businesses and retailers will bear and try to pass on these costs, Lydia Cox said.
The news is not all bad for US businesses, said Cox, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tariffs on foreign goods will allow US companies to raise prices due to less competition, making domestic production more profitable. But US consumers would pay higher prices for both domestic and imported products as a result, she said.
At the same time, US manufacturers would face higher input costs for imported goods, she said. “All downstream manufacturers are going to be exposed to these higher input costs.”
On balance, US industries are hurt more by higher input costs than they will benefit from tariff protection, she said.
For every worker helped by tariffs on steel, for instance, 80 will be hurt in downstream industries. During the first Trump presidency, US tariffs hurt agricultural exports from farmers in the Midwest, she said. “The best way to talk about tariffs is, they’re a pretty blunt instrument.”
Tariffs are nothing new in the US. In 1971, President Richard Nixon imposed an across-theboard 10 percent tariff to get other nations to change their fixed exchange rate currency policies.
Prior to the US Civil War, tariffs provided 90 percent of government revenue, said Doug Irwin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College. Between the time of the Civil War and the Great Depression of the 1930s, tariffs made up between 40 and 50 percent of US government revenues.
Since the end of World War II, tariffs have generally been very low.
Over the course of US history, tariffs have been used to raise revenue, to restrict imports and support domestic production, or more recently used in a climate of reciprocity depending on trade deals, he said.
President Trump likes all three uses to which tariffs have been put, Irwin said. But “you really can’t achieve all three (goals) at the same time.”
African immigrants from subSaharan Africa’s largest economies have some of the highest median household incomes in the United States, outperforming native-born Americans, an article from the “Semafor Africa” newsletter suggests.
“Latest data from the US Census Bureau shows that South Africans in the US earn the most of any African community, with a median household income of nearly $108,000. Kenyans, Cameroonians, Ghanaians, and Nigerians all earn above $77,000,
which is the average for the US population as a whole — and far above exceed median incomes in most African countries.”
Western demand for baobab products is jeopardizing one of the world’s longest-living trees.
Traditional African medicine has long used the bark and roots of the Baobab tree, which is native to at least 37 African countries, two in the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of Australia. Carbon dating has suggested that Baobab trees can live up to 3,000 years. One elderly, hollow Baobab tree in Zimbabwe is so big that 40 people can hide inside its trunk.
Now that regulators in the US and European Union have recognized baobab pulp as a food ingredient, it can be used in drinks, foods, natural remedies, and cosmetics in those countries. Observers worry this could increase the risk the tree will become extinct.
The tree has a slow growth rate and does not flower and produce fruits for its first 20 years. In some dry climates, it can take up to 60 years for fruit to appear. .
The Word Fulfilled: Reading the Bible With Jesus by Michael W. Pahl (Herald Press, 2024. 172 pages $19.99 US)
Discipleship--following Jesus in life--is an important focus for Anabaptist/Mennonites. According to Michael W. Pahl, we should also follow Jesus in the way he reads Scripture.
Pahl reminds us that Jesus did not have a Bible like we do. Instead, he learned the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) primarily by hearing them read or sung from scrolls in the synagogue on the Sabbath or recited and sung in his home and village daily.
Pahl identifies seven of the most prominent Old Testament passages quoted by Jesus in the Gospels. He explores each one in its depth and context, and with some imaginative storytelling offers a window into first-century Jewish life, and why these texts were so formative for Jesus.
Pahl concludes that “Jesus read his Scriptures in a distinctive way,”
by offering a new hermeneutic (way of interpreting the Bible). “When we read the Bible with Jesus, we learn to love God by loving others: neighbors, strangers, those who are different, even our enemies.” And that means that “if our interpretation of a passage in the Bible leads us to not love another person…then we are not reading the Bible rightly.”
At the end of the book, Pahl offers a Digging Deeper section where he explains more about the historical context of Jesus and the Gospels, and a study guide, useful for a small group book study, sermon preparation, or personal reflection.
This book is fresh, accessible, and readable, deepening our experience of the Bible. .
interpretive lens and the ethical center for his approach. He surveys the Scriptures to show how God calls us to express our culture in ways that look more like Jesus. He affirms that “the Way of Jesus can be followed anywhere in the world” regardless of a person’s cultural identity.
He calls followers of Jesus to express their faith from within their home culture, as long as they are displaying the fruit of the Spirit as described in Galatians 5:22-23. I would have appreciated a more nuanced approach to the Old Testament and its place in Jesus’ life and the whole Bible.
Near the end of the book, in a section with space for making notes, Buck offers many practical takeaways to help individuals, churches, and pastors identify and explore how to integrate their cultural narratives and values with the Way of Jesus, confident that diversity is the fullest expression of God’s image. .
In God’s Good Image: How Jesus Dignifies, Shapes, and Confronts Our Cultural Identities by J.W. Buck (Herald Press, 192 pages, $19.99 US)
Cultural identities can be divisive. But in his book exploring how faith and culture intersect, J.W. Buck describes cultural diversity as a gift expressing God’s good image in every person. He defines cultural identity as “the stories, values, or expressions that best define you,” including 10 aspects such as language, ethnicity, race, class, age, and so on. He also helps people see their cultural blind spots and addresses the power dynamics between majority and minority cultures.
Buck uses Jesus as the
Janet Bauman
Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish by Nicholas Rowe and Sheila Wise Rowe (InterVarsity Press, 2024, 200pp, $18.00 US)
Despite its title, Healing Leadership Trauma does not center trauma in the narrow dictionary definition of “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.” Instead, the authors focus more broadly on emotional health as it relates to the attachments we form in childhood, outlined in the work of psychologists John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, and others. In their attachment theory, the secure, insecure, or disorganized attachments we form with our parents and other caregivers shape
the way we relate to others, the way we lead, and the way we respond to trauma.
The authors share their experiences as leaders and draw
on their 30 years of work with emerging and experienced industry and ministry leaders in the United States and South Africa. They do an excellent job of combining reallife experience with psychological insight, all in the context of Scripture, prayer, and other soulcare practices. I started reading the book for this review, but by the third chapter, I had already gained some valuable insights for myself.
While the theology and language of this book is conservative and evangelical, it has much to offer leaders across the theological spectrum, and whether you’ve experienced trauma before, during, or after your role as a leader. Chapters include The Roots of Detachment, The Pull of Temptation, The Myth of Self-Sufficiency, Gender Trauma, Racial and Ethnic Trauma, The Necessity of Rest, and more—with each chapter ending with creative practices, reflection questions, and/ or embodied prayers. This book invites participation, healing, and growth. .
April Yamasaki is a pastor, author, editor, and spiritual formation mentor.
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