QR 97

QUARTERLY RETURN 97 Autumn 2015

BASKETS OF JOY IN GHANA

LIBERATION FOR FAIRTRADE NUT FARMERS

We’re on our way

Improving lives through farming and handcraft production in Ghana.

Bringing together nut farmers across the globe.

Shared Interest is coming to a town near you.

page 06 & 07

Page 09, 10 & 11

page 03

Welcome Thanks to all of our members and volunteers who have helped us surpass our 25th anniversary target of reaching £33 million before the end of the year.

As you read this copy of QR, remember that you make all of this life changing impact possible. Reaching our latest milestone in share capital means that our lending team can offer financial support to more producers in disadvantaged communities.

Demand for our financial services has never been higher, and in response we have set ourselves a new target of reaching £35.5 million by the end of September 2016. Without this investment we will not be able to fulfill the pipeline of lending enquiries we already have.

Do you use the secure area of our website to view your Share Account online? Some of our members want to cut down on their amount of post and choose to look at their statements and read QR via our website.

If you would like to sign up for this service, now is the time to do it as we launch Our Shared Interest. This is our new and improved website for members, and more information is available in the article opposite.

We are delighted to announce our mini roadshow of the UK. Check the details on page 3 to see when we will be in a town near you for one of our supporter events. Scaling down our AGM in 2016 is enabling us to hold more events in different areas of the country.

I will be speaking at the first of these regional events in Manchester, where we will be joined by our customer Liberation Nuts and Aniamma Roy, cashew farmer and Vice Chairperson of Liberation shareholder organisation FTAK in India.

We are looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible over the coming months. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy your latest copy of QR.

Patricia Alexander, Managing Director

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Front cover image: TradeAid, handcraft producers in Ghana

Our

Shared Interest Over 2,000 of you already use our online area for members, where you can do things like check your balance and see your statements within a secure section of our website.

This autumn we are unveiling a new and improved online portal called Our Shared Interest, which will be more interactive. You will be able to change details such as your address, and in future also make transactions online – both adding to and withdrawing from your Share Account.

There will also be an opportunity to tell us about your personal preferences. For instance, if you are more interested in hearing about customers in Africa, or enjoy learning about how coffee is produced, we can make sure these are the stories you hear more about.

Members who have already opted in to our current secure area will automatically transfer over to the new portal. There will be scope for you to be able to pay funds into your Share Account online in future. However, if you haven’t already supplied us with your bank details, you will not be able to make transactions online until you complete the form provided.

For security purposes, all online withdrawals will be made into your nominated bank account so we need this information before we make your online access complete.

If you are not signed up for online access and wish to be part of Our Shared Interest, please go to www.shared-interest.com and click on the green LOGIN button on the top right hand corner of the screen. Alternatively, call us on 0191 233 9132 or email online@shared-interest.com to find out more.

We are moving!

After almost a decade at our current UK headquarters, we are moving to new premises in January 2016.

Although we are only relocating a few hundred yards across Newcastle city centre, it will mean that FREEPOST envelopes become obsolete.

In fact, we will be charged for any used after we relocate. For this reason, we would appreciate it if you could recycle any FREEPOST envelopes you may have at home. We will update you further on our new contact details in the next QR.

Future Member Events and

our 2016 AGM

As Shared Interest’s 25th anniversary year draws to a close, our Board and Council have been discussing ways to encourage more active engagement with members.

The main event for open floor and member discussion has been our AGM and Member Day, which takes place each March. Although we do change the location of this every year to ensure that members have an opportunity to attend, we realise that our average attendance of 152 members is still low, equating to a turnout of between one and two per cent of our membership. Our recent members’ survey also highlighted that many of you would like to meet other supporters in your local area.

In response we have decided to trial a series of regional member events starting in Manchester in October. Members will have the chance to hear about recent lending activities and the social impact of investments from our Managing Director, Patricia Alexander.

We will also invite guest speakers - including producers - to join in the discussion. A NonExecutive Director and a member of Council will also attend each event. Voting will still take place at the Annual General Meeting in March but a summary of results will be presented at the subsequent member events.

Date

Location

The format of each event will also include an optional workshop in the afternoon. This is in response to members expressing an interest in how they can help spread the word about Shared Interest. We will provide advice on how to be effective in your local community with regards to leaflets, events, newsletter pieces for local newsletters, and social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

We will also be looking to hold joint events with partner organisations and the first of these comes in the form of an ethical investment debate. This will be held in Bristol on 16 October in partnership with Rathbone Greenbank, Triodos and Bristol Fairtrade Network.

Venue

Guest speaker(s)

Friday 23 October 2015

Manchester

Friends Meeting House

Ed Mayo Secretary General, Co-operatives UK and Aniamma Roy cashew farmer and Vice Chairperson of Liberation shareholder organisation FTAK, India

Friday 11 March 2016

Newcastle

Northern Stage

AGM only

Friday 13 May

York

Priory Street Centre

TBC

Friday 20 May

London

TBC

TBC

Friday 10 June

Edinburgh

Royal College of Physicians

TBC

Thursday 16 June

Oxford

The Old Fire Station

TBC

Meet fellow members Do you want to meet other investors in your area? Although we would never share your personal details we can put you in touch personally with fellow members in your area with your permission.

If this is something that interests you, please get in touch with our membership team on 0191 233 9100 or at membership@shared-interest.com QR97 03

SECURING FRUITFUL LIVELIHOODS

IN BURKINA FASO

Featured in QR 92 Association TON (ATN) is a mango and cashew nut producer organisation based in Burkina Faso. When we last featured the producers they were facing numerous challenges in their efforts to maximise on the mango harvest and to give job security to employees.

As well as the fight to preserve the full harvest before it is wasted on the land, the ovens were outdated and inefficient, and the six month mango seasons prevented ATN employing staff throughout the year.

Four years ago ATN began dealing in raw cashew nuts, however diversification in itself did not provide the answers. So ATN approached Shared Interest.

This improved performance was attributed to the increase in the production capacity. The processing unit of the association was renovated in 2013 and new drying ovens were procured with the term loan from Shared Interest.

The producers explained that the acquisition of the new combined gas/electric ovens has enabled the association to increase its production volumes and expand its revenue streams.

Back in 2014 plans were in place for a new cashew nut processing unit and the purchase of a truck to help collect raw materials and make deliveries. ATN hoped that these improvements would bring threefold increase in production, a 50% increase in profits and a reduction in production losses.

“Without the financial support from Shared Interest our business wouldn’t be where it is now. Sales volume and value are up, producers have increased and the number of employees has increased by 74%.

Finance from Shared Interest has allowed us to expand under our own direction and to take opportunities as they arise.”

-Toro salifou, atn.

Our Monitoring and Evaluation Officer Kodzo Korkortsi recently visited the producers and found that there had been a tremendous improvement in their commercial performance since we provided financial assistance.

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In fact, drying capacity has increased from 198 kg to 350 kg of dried mangoes and quality has reached record levels. Their buyer Gebana Afrique, has also noticed the improvement and commented on the exceptional quality of products supplied.

The number of employees has also seen an increase over the past year. One hundred new jobs were created over the period, 87% of whom were women as additional hands were needed to do the sorting, washing, peeling, cutting and packaging.

A further term loan allowed ATN to acquire a truck, which made it easier to convey the fresh fruits from producers’ orchards to the processing factory. This has attracted further producers to become members of the association. When conducting a focus group with the workers Kodzo was told that their daily wage had risen from XOF (West African Franc) 1000 per day to XOF 1500 per day.

They explained that for the first time they were able to support their husbands to pay their children’s school fees and to provide the basic needs of the family. A large number of workers were able to buy motorbikes for themselves.

2012

2013

2014

2012

2013

2014

2012

2013

2014

2012

2013

2014

×× Increase in productivity from 198 to 350 kg/day

×× Increase in sales volume from 23.8 to 28.11 metric tonnes

×× Asset base expanded from

USD 152,963 to USD 216,056

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BASKETS OF JOY

in GHANA

Established at the turn of the millennium, TraidAID Integrated in Upper East Ghana is hoping to help people improve their lives through farming and handcraft production.

Having recently completed Shared Interest Foundation’s Access to Finance project, which involved training and mentoring in financial management, TraidAID Integrated applied for a loan from Shared Interest Society to buy a truck.

Previously the organisation was eroding its profit margins by depending on commercial vehicles to transport handmade baskets to port for shipment. Executive Director Nicholas Apokerah said:

“Shared interest is key to the survival of producers, and UK investors should see their investment as a vital contribution to people’s livelihoods.”

It is predicted that the truck will now reduce transport costs by half each year, and a dual use has already been established at the opposite end of the process for transporting straw to the craft centres. TraidAID Integrated’s main product is straw baskets and unfortunately the price of the raw material has rocketed over the past year. This is because the straws, which normally grow wild, have become scarce due to rapid urbanisation.

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A recent report by the World Bank, ‘Rising through Cities in Ghana’, explores this vast growth of an urban population from four million in 1984 to more than 14 million today.

The report states: “Over the last three decades, Ghana’s urban population has more than tripled…outpacing rural population growth. The country is moving steadily and uniformly – all regions have experienced this growth – toward cities. In fact, Ghana’s urban population growth has been faster in its smaller cities than its larger ones.”

Despite the effects of transport and materials costs on their balance sheets, Executive Director Nicholas Apokerah is positive about the achievements of the organisation over the past year.

One marked advancement at last year was the increase in workforce. Predominately female, the number of basket weavers involved rose by 93%, with 65 men and 1025 women now making baskets on their behalf.

TraidAID Integrated has invested in the local community by building the Sumbrungu Craft Centre, which has brought together two groups of basket weavers. Previously sitting under trees to weave their baskets, the 50 women involved are now happy to have somewhere to meet together more formally.

Basket weaver, Rhoda Apana said: “After construction of the community building I experienced an unprecedented change in my weaving and I’m able to share my skills with others.

We can continue to weave even when the weather is rainy or harsh and keep equipment in the centre and as well store our finished baskets.

“The income I earn from weaving has doubled from 50 to 100 Ghana Cedis per month and has enabled me to support my husband in the upkeep of the family.”

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NEW THINGS IN STORE

at Traidcraft

Traidcraft plc became a Shared Interest customer in 1991 and has been significant to the Society’s growth over the last 25 years.

The real Shared Interest journey started off as early as 1986 when Traidcraft Exchange sponsored research into the role of banking and investment within the fair trade movement and found that the main challenge faced by fair trade producers was access to working capital. It was out of this revelation that Shared Interest was created.

Carlos Garcia from CIPAC hosting a honey tasting session with Shared Interest staff.

Last month Traidcraft opened a new outlet shop at its factory in Team Valley, Gateshead. The official opening ceremony was led by the Bishop of Durham.

For more information on Traidcraft you can visit their website at www.traidcraft.co.uk A selection of Traidcraft products which contain honey and coffee from CIPAC

Traidcraft is a buyer organisation selling the UK’s widest range of fair trade products. It runs life changing development projects and campaigns hard to bring about trade justice – all from its head office in Tyne and Wear.

Traidcraft sources honey and coffee from Shared Interest customer CIPAC in Guatemala (featured in QR 94). CIPAC is a small honey producer co‑operative that recently diversified into coffee production. It relies heavily on organisations like Traidcraft to get the products to market.

Photo to the right: The Bishop of Durham opened the Traidcraft store

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LIBERATION FOR

Fairtrade NUT FARMERS Liberation Foods is the UK’s only Fairtrade farmer-owned nut company. Its vision is a world in which smallholder nut producers earn a decent, secure income and can plan for the future. For this reason, it buys nuts from the co-operatives of small scale growers and farmers, who own a 44% share of the company.

“Or even solar powered fences to protect cashew trees whilst not hurting the endangered elephants that like to munch on them.”

Liberation brings together peanut farmers from Malawi and Nicaragua, cashew nut farmers from India and El Salvador, and brazil nut gatherers from the Amazon rainforest. Producers are also shareholders, united in their goal and actively involved in the whole supply chain.

Contact - Liberation Foods CIC, Third Floor, 1 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3LT. Telephone: 020 7375 7603 or e-mail: Nuts@chooseliberation.com

All Liberation products carry the Fairtrade mark, which means that the producer organisations like Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK) get paid at least the Fairtrade minimum price for their nuts and that they receive a Fairtrade premium for every kilogram they sell.

Established in 2005, FTAK is an organisation of smallholder farmers drawn from the hilly regions of the Western Ghats of Kerala. FTAK evolved as a response to the agricultural crisis that gripped Kerala during the beginning of the 21st century, when producers were not even getting the cost of production for much of their produce.

Today, FTAK aims to ensure that small scale farming is a sustainable occupation, giving producers a fair price for their products and ensuring that farming protects and nurtures the land as well as the workers.

The Fairtrade minimum price is designed to ensure that farmers can earn a decent living from growing their nuts – if the market price is above the Fairtrade minimum then Liberation pays at least the market price.

Liberation Managing Director, Kate Gaskill, said: “The Fairtrade premium has contributed to a range of projects such as health care and education facilities, or tools and equipment to grow better quality nuts.

If you would like to sample some Liberation Nuts, please get in touch with their head office to receive a free trial size pack.

Liberation will be able to send you either peppercorn peanuts with cashews and habas fritas, or chilli and lime cashews with peanuts and roasted corn.

Members in the Manchester area have an opportunity to meet Amanda from the Liberation team and Aniamma from FTAK at our supporter event.

Aniamma is in the UK to celebrate National Nut Day on Thursday 22 October. Our event takes place on the following day and you can find more details on page 3. In the meantime, read more about Aniamma and the farmer organisation she represents in our featured interview on the following page.

Tell us something we don’t know about FTAK • FTAK is the single largest group of certified organic farmers in Kerala. Its farms are located in the Western Ghats, declared by the United Nations as a World Heritage site.

• Land ownership in Kerala / India is predominantly in the name of the man.

FTAK has addressed this problem by delinking membership from land ownership.

The membership in FTAK is for the farming family and can be represented in the organisation by any adult member, man or woman. The neighbourhood groups that are now emerging are mostly led by women.

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Interview with Aniamma Roy

FTAK Vice Chairperson

Aniamma Roy has been a cashew nut farmer for 15 years and a member of Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK) since 2008.

Q: Tell us a little bit about a day in your life – your family, the community you live in, how you go about your work I live with my husband and two children, both of whom are studying. My normal day starts at 5am.

The first job is to milk the cows and tend to the cattle after which we prepare breakfast and also lunch in time for children to leave for school. My husband and I work in the fields together – doing a whole lot of assorted tasks, as we have a mixed crop farm. A normal day ends by around 10pm.

As the head of the local group and vice chair of FTAK I have to set aside a significant amount of time for organisational work and my husband then has to pitch in more in managing the household chores and tending to the cattle and the farm.

We have fortnightly meetings of the local FTAK group and district and state level organisational work means that I have to travel from my village at least once a month, sometimes more often.

The community I live in consists of settler farmers who came to this place about four decades back and virtually built the farms from scratch. The terrain is still not connected with good roads and the farm lands adjoin forest areas – so protecting the crop from wild animals continues to be a major problem.

Q: What does it mean to you that your co-operative, along with four other nut producing co-ops from Bolivia, El Salvador, Malawi and Nicaragua, owns 44% of Liberation Foods?

In 2008 FTAK hosted the INPC / Liberation Assembly in Kerala. People asked us what the fuss was all about.

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We said farmers residing in the remote hill tracts of Malabar are owning a company in London and all the people with whom we own the company are coming down to our place to have an assembly.

“It was a great moment for us to meet with all the people who were shareholders in Liberation. And now I am getting to visit the headquarters of the company.”

Q: How do you feel about your trip to visit Liberation Foods London office and to celebrate National Nut Day in October with Liberation staff and customers? What are you looking forward to? Are you nervous about anything?

I feel happy to visit Liberation office in London and to be part of the National Nut Day celebrations. When we sold our cashews earlier in the market, before joining Fairtrade we did not know anything about what happened to it after that.

“Here I get to meet people whom it reaches, people who take it to the customers on our behalf. I am looking forward to hear how they like our cashews and to meet other farmers who also sell their products to customers in the UK through Liberation.”

I am nervous about being away from my home for so long. I only speak my native language Malayalam and I am a bit worried how I will manage to communicate with people who do not know Malayalam. (Please note: Aniamma will travel with an interpreter).

Q: What has been the best thing so far for you or your family or your community about selling Fairtrade nuts to Liberation? What do you wish for in the future?

FTAK CASE STUDY

We joined Fair Trade Alliance Kerala through a special social premium project of FTAK called Jaiva Jeevadhara, or Organic Lifeline.

“This programme was literally a lifeline for us farmers who were settled in remote, difficult to access hilly region of Kannur district.”

The crops, mainly coconut and areca nut had all been lost by various disease that affected the farms and most of us had been reduced to wage labour to make ends meet. Most of us were planning to sell our land and move to the plains where it would be easy to secure work on daily wages.

We used the social premium that FTAK secured through the sale of its nuts to run the Jaiva Jeevadhara project. There were three parts to the programme – one part was interest-free loans to start some income generation activity that bought immediate relief to the families – to purchase cows, goats, poultry and so on that generated immediate income for the survival needs of the family. It helped bring food on the table.

Medium-term loans were given to plant seasonal and annual crops that enabled the land to be productive and took care of needs like educational expenses for children, cattle sheds, urgent house repairs etc. And then we also secured long-term loans to help plant and grow long-term crops like cashew, coffee, etc to ensure that we had predictable sustainable returns form the farm.

Dileep T Joseph, and his family of four young children, appreciates the Fairtrade price and is glad that he no longer has to fight to get a decent price for his cashews in the open market. He has benefited from Fairtrade due to a fair price for cashews being fixed. Dileep has plans to irrigate his farm so that in years where the weather is too hot with little or no rainfall, he can still maintain a good yield from his crop.

COINACAPA, Bolivia – brazil nuts

After the launch of the programme, hardly any families sold land and migrated away from the area.

I first approached FTAK as a beneficiary woman seeking support from the organisation, today I am its Vice Chairperson trying to ensure that the organisation makes real change possible in the lives for many more women.

Q: What do you think is the greatest challenge facing your community and/or the Fairtrade community?

Farming is still not an activity that we can confidently ask our children to join. I am quite concerned about the future of farming and whether our children will adopt it as a proud profession.

The Fairtrade community all over the world must address this question and find means to ensure smallholder farming continue. While I acknowledge that Fairtrade offers us a better deal compared to the conventional market, I am concerned that the prices offered can still not be called fair prices or prices that match our true cost of production.

Shared Interest also provides finance to COINACAPA in Bolivia, which supplies Liberation with brazil nuts. Gatherers can spend weeks in the forest collecting nuts falling from trees up to 160ft tall – the nuts are encased in a ‘coconut’.

One member of COINACAPA says: ‘‘Since we started the co-operative, it’s as if we’ve gained our freedom. It feels like we’re not slaves any more. We have more income, more work and more dignity.”

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Meet Martin Canning elected to Council by members in March 2015 I am convinced that enabling people to help themselves through enterprise is a crucial route to progress in the developing world. This was underlined for me with my own experience in East Africa. It is also why my wife and I have been keen supporters of Shared Interest for some years.

Doing business in Tanzania taught me about the cash economy, how tight money can be, and how difficult and expensive it is for businesses to get access to finance. It also showed up the poor quality of some consumer goods on the local market and the limitations of domestic product support.

In 2010, the Anglican Church of Tanzania was looking for some help with their plans for developing self-sufficiency. As Business Development Consultant I was able to support various initiatives, including property development and starting an importing and wholesaling business for small scale solar lighting, which contributed to reducing reliance on dangerous and polluting kerosene lamps.

I was very impressed with the ingenuity of the Tanzanian people, their willingness to embrace mobile money transfers via their phones and the impact small scale finance can have.

I spent over two years working in the capital, Dodoma, and have returned a number of times since 2012 to continue supporting various projects.

I hope this background will enable me to contribute effectively to Council’s decision-making on the many new initiatives included in Shared Interest’s strategy for the next five years.

Martin Canning

Finance with a Human Face Cocoa, cashews, honey and coconut – these were the Fairtrade products represented by 12 of our producer groups meeting up in June to share their customer experiences.

Held over a full day at a hotel in Abidjan, the Ivory Coast Fairtrade Network co-chaired the meeting, which was the first of its kind.

John and Christie from our Ghana office with the Ivory Coast Fairtrade Network

John Dossou from our Ghana office said: “This opportunity has strengthened our bond with our customers and has demonstrated Shared Interest’s commitment to finance with a human face.”

Contact us

Quarterly Return is the newsletter of Shared Interest Society.

Shared Interest Society

Shared Interest Society Ltd is a fair trade lending organisation which is a member of Co-operatives UK. It uses the pooled investments of its members in the UK to effect real and lasting improvements to people’s lives in the developing world.

2 Cathedral Square Groat Market Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1EH 0191 233 9102

@SharedInterest membership@shared-interest.com www.shared-interest.com

Shared Interest Society Ltd is registered with the Registrar of Mutual Societies, number 27093R. The Directors decide on what the interest rate payable to members will be.

From 1 October 2011 the interest rate has been 0.5%.