September-October 2020
Where Christian faith gets down to business
Empowering women:
Nigeria WAY in pictures Forecasting the future of economic development Kenyan technology addresses COVID challenges Motorcycle manufacturing in the Midwest
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The Marketplace September October 2020
Roadside stand
Join MEDA’s November virtual convention MEDA’s annual convention has long been an event that supporters have anticipated and enjoyed. For the first time ever, circumstances have forced the organization to forego an inperson event. People who were looking forward to strolling through the streets of Montreal during convention will have to wait until 2023 for that opportunity. But the convention will go on, in a new, online format over two days — Friday, November 6 and Saturday, November 7. Keynote speakers are author Amanda Little and filmmaker Paul Plett. You can read an excerpt from Little’s latest book, The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World on pages 8 through 11 of this issue. Plett’s documentary, Seven Points on Earth, which explores the beliefs and lives of Mennonite farmers in seven countries, was highlighted in a story in the March issue of this magazine. As always, convention will include opportunities for people to chat with peers. There will be a panel of MEDA clients discussing their work and challenges. A series of short seminars dealing with MEDA’s international work creating business solutions to poverty, issues related to faith and business, and professional development will also be highlights. For additional details about MEDA’s first virtual convention or to register, visit https://www.meda. org/meda-convention Follow The Marketplace on Twitter @MarketplaceMEDA
The Marketplace September October 2020
Keeping things safe A story in our July issue highlighted the work of WOISO, a MEDA partner in Tanzania that is making face masks for vulnerable populations during the coronavirus pandemic. MEDA projects in Myanmar (photo above) and Ethiopia have pivoted to supply personal protective equipment to farmers and others.
Back to the office MEDA offices are gradually reopening, both in North America and several countries around the world: Jordan, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ukraine. Other projects will follow as conditions allow.
In the People Business The Faith & Co. series of short business documentaries produced by Seattle Pacific University is consistently fascinating. Their latest release, “In the People Business,” is no exception. 2
The documentary looks at L& R Pallet Services of Denver, Colorado, through the eyes of second-generation owners James and Carine Ruder. The couple, who began working at the firm in the early 1990s, overcame a series of challenges. Following the great recession of 2008-2009, they discovered that their trusted inner circle of managers had embezzled close to $500,000 over six months. They also had staff turnover topping 300 percent. The theft crisis, followed by a church missions trip to Peru with his family a few years later, brought a spiritual awakening for James Ruder, softening his heart. He changed his orientation from viewing staff as a commodity to seeing people first. That led to a focus on helping his culturally diverse workforce with the issues they face outside of work. Turnover has dropped to 30 percent for the firm, which employs 130 and has $18 million in sales. You can watch their story at this link: Meda.org/peoplebiz
Leno likes bikes Read Marshall King’s profile of the Janus motorcycle firm, (pg. 17) then watch the video of former Tonight Show host Jay Leno interviewing the founders and taking one of their bikes for a test ride. Two things came to mind after watching that segment: First, you can’t buy that kind of publicity. Second, listening to Leno discuss technical specs and other aspects of motorcycle minutiae with the Janus guys is borderline hilarious. The segment makes it clear that Jay Leno is fanatic in his appreciation for motorcycles.
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In this issue
Features
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Showing the WAY
MEDA’s Nigeria WAY program works to empower women and youth entrepreneurs. This issue’s centrespread is dedicated to some photos from that work.
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Doing things differently
MEDA president asks heads of four development organizations how the sector will change over the next decade
MEDA president Dorothy Nyambi
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Bridging the distance
Digital tools allow Kenyan farmers to stay connected with suppliers during the pandemic.
Departments 22 Roadside stand 24 Soul enterprise 27 Soundbites 22 Review
Cover photo of Daw San Thwin by Susan Chel, MEDA Myanmar 3
The Marketplace September October 2020
Soul Enterp prise
A Prayer for Working from Home By Will Sorrell Almighty God, Giver of Work and Rest, I awake, and I am with you. iStock AleksandarNakic
My commute is a trudge from bed to desk, a stepping over toys and garments, feet that feel like miles. Ready my body to face unfamiliar tasks in this familiar place. My eyes are prone to wander alone. My ears are prone to hear my flesh over your Spirit. My lips are prone to curse and lash. My fingers and back are prone to cramp and complain. My nose is prone to forget that every breath comes from you. Let my eyes keep watch with you with care. Let my ears hear the birds raise their carols to you. Let my lips be patient on conference calls and voicemails. Let my fingers and back find relaxation under tension. Let my nose relish the home-brewed tea and remember. O omnipotent and omnipresent Carpenter, you who fashioned the lumber of the land, you who breathed life into us from the dust, you who are crafting this world anew, build in me a confidence that I am your temple. Make my heart believe that you are intersecting the heavens and the earth in my very being. As I rely on technology to traverse the world outside my dwelling, let your Holy Spirit minister to the souls and bodies I email and call. Though I am absent in the flesh, make others present with you through me. Help me to notice the emotions in their eyes on a videoconference. Help me to give care to the tones and tremors in their voices. You who made time and space and planted us to live and work within them, let my love for my coworkers and customers not be bound by proximity, but rather let my finite self trust in your infinite good pleasure. O beloved Intercessor who never slumbers or sleeps, allow my midday rhythms of rest to be an act of prayer. As I fix food and refill my glass, give me pause to give thanks. As I sip water to quench my thirst, as I taste leftovers to satisfy my stomach, fill my teammates, my boss, The Marketplace September October 2020
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my clients, my suppliers, my acquaintances with good gifts. As the sun begins to fade and the lull of afternoon approaches, help me. Help me to view children as blessings to receive, not as obstacles to overcome. Help me to have energy to engage, to decide, to create, to innovate. Help me to persevere unto the end, knowing that you are my strength and song. Jesus, my Lord and my friend— hiccups in communication assail me, deadlines loom dark like the shadows on my floor, the deafening emptiness of this room threatens my confidence, and I feel utterly alone. Jesus, my comfort and my companion— do not let me continue to consume the bread of anxious toil. Prepare a table before me in the presence of my fear. Shepherd me into pastures of faith,
Volume 50, Issue 5 September October 2020 The Marketplace (ISSN 321-330) is published bi-monthly by Mennonite Economic Development Associates at 532 North Oliver Road, Newton, KS 67114. Periodicals postage paid at Newton, KS 67114. Lithographed in U.S.A. Copyright 2018 by MEDA. Editor: Mike Strathdee Design: Ray Dirks
streams of dependence, and valleys of resting in your everlasting mercy. When the time comes for me to close the laptop, turn off the lights, and exit the email, empower me to want to do this all again tomorrow. Help me see what you see in my work. Help me see you at work. Just as you have transformed my house into an office, be faithful now to transform it into a home again. I beseech you to do these things, because I need you to do them, because only you can do them, and because you are good. Amen. Will Sorrell works in commercial banking, hosts Ergonomy Podcast, and researches the intersection of faith, work, mission, and technology. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Reprinted with permission from The Gospel Coalition, INC.
Postmaster: Send address changes to The Marketplace 33 N Market St., Suite 400, Lancaster, PA 17603-3805 Change of address should be sent to Mennonite Economic Development Associates, 33 N Market St, Suite 400, Lancaster, PA 17603-3805. To e-mail an address change, subscription request or anything else relating to delivery of the magazine, please contact subscription@meda.org For editorial matters, email mstrathdee@meda.org or call (800) 665-7026, ext. 705 Subscriptions: $30/year; $55/two years. Published by Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA). MEDA’s economic development work in developing countries creates business solutions to poverty. MEDA also facilitates the connection of faith and work through discussions, publications and conventions for participants. For more information about MEDA call 1-800-6657026. Web site www.meda.org Want to see back issues or reread older articles? Visit https://www.meda.org/download-issues/ The Marketplace is printed on Endurance Recycled Velvet and is 10% recycled (postconsumer waste), FSC® Certified to help meet client sustainability requirements, Acid Free, Elemental Chlorine Free
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The Marketplace September October 2020
Review
Doing business by the Book Machine shop owner makes a case for using the golden rule to guide commerce Good Work. How blue-collar business can change lives, communities and the world by Dave Hataj (Moody Publishers, 2020. 256pp., $15.99US) Dave Hataj is a workplace prophet with a successful business and a compelling story to share. Hataj is a second-generation owner of Edgerton Gear, a Wisconsin precision manufacturing business. His life took several unexpected turns. Early on, he had no interest in being part of the firm, let alone running it. But his theological studies and missional heart eventually led him back home. Some of the material in Good Work will be familiar to anyone who has read books about Christian financial stewardship. What sets this book apart, and makes Hataj’s story so impressive, is how he takes Jesus’ teachings seriously as a guiding light for conducting business. A machinist with a doctoral degree, he is committed to living out the principle that business is God’s instrument to help the world prosper and thrive. He challenges people to be virtuous in every aspect of life, including their business dealings. Jesus, he explains, was a small business guy who grew up in a family trade, and “lived with the frustrations of constant broken promises by vendors and suppliers.” This outlook is not the naïve posture of a starry-eyed optimist. Hataj has seen the good, bad, and ugly of a blue-collar workplace. He has endured conflict, betrayals that might have led others to file lawsuits, and personal burnout The Marketplace September October 2020
along the way. The modern workplace, he writes, “is like a set of worn out, misaligned gears. When gears are damaged and not meshing properly, bad things happen.” At the same time, he believes that the workplace “can be a place of deep significance and lifeaffirming community.” For Hataj, business is about more than making a profit. He thinks business’s proper role is to provide needed goods and services, and to make opportunities for meaningful work that will help people express their creativity. He warns people to have a proper attitude towards money, or else “going into business will be like walking into a minefield without a metal detector.” The book contains a thoughtful 6
discussion on things that are not always openly discussed. These include pricing the products his firm sells, treating customers as neighbors, and the challenges of relating honestly and fairly with staff and clients. Hataj calls product pricing a moral issue that takes “a tremendous amount of spiritual discipline and wisdom.” Company employees are allotted up to 20 hours a year to chaperone their children’s field trips, assist non-profit organizations or to help others in need. Philanthropy is an important part of Hataj’s worldview. He has set up several charitable trusts. He’s angry about well-known (but unnamed) charities paying their leaders over $500,000 to as much as $1 million a year, sums he deems excessive. Hataj’s thoughts on international aid will be familiar to MEDA supporters, and all people who see the value of creating business solutions to poverty. He warns about the need for charities to be careful with their relief efforts to avoid damaging the economies of countries where goods are sent. He hopes such efforts will stop fostering dependence and find “creative ways to help people experience the dignity of providing for themselves.” “What they really need and want is access to the marketplace, which is often dominated and manipulated to keep the poor dependent on big multinational corporations and government.” This book is a provocative and important read for entrepreneurs and laypeople alike.
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Soundbites
Business magazine praises former British aid agency Many in the international aid community have criticized the British government’s recent decision to merge the Department for International Development with the UK’s Foreign Office. The two departments will become the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in June. Almost 200 humanitarian aid and development charities and nongovernmental organizations have publicly denounced the move. DFID had several notable successes, Forbes magazine suggests. Among these were: its role as a major donor to global vaccine programs, being a leading donor in the fight against malnutrition in developing nations, and its role in funding M-PESA. M-PESA is a mobile money application that has made a huge difference for business and individuals in Kenya, a country where many people do not have access to banking services. Forbes notes that DIFD has its flaws but concludes that it was one of the most influential aid agencies in the world and will be missed. The United Kingdom has been one of the few nations to meet the United Nation’s goal of spending .7 percent of gross domestic product on international aid.
Labor day’s Christian roots The religious roots of organized labor, and Labor Day itself, have been forgotten, Adon Taft wrote in an article for Religion News service. In the US, Labor Day began in 1892. It was declared a national holiday by President Grover Cleveland in 1894. Terence Vincent Powderly,
a pioneering labor union leader, politician, and attorney in that era, was a devout Catholic. He had this to say about the importance of Labor Day: “If Labor Day is observed as it ought to be, the gospel of humanity will be understood by all men and women … ’Love thy neighbor as thyself’’ ... (and) ‘Do unto your neighbor as you would have your neighbor do unto you’ will have a meaning not now understood as they should be this side of the portals where eternity begins and God rules in the presence of those He calls from the earth.”
Carver the innovator African-American agriculturalist George Washington Carver is profiled in the latest issue of Christian History magazine. Carver founded the agricultural department at Tuskegee Institute, an all-black school in Alabama. He also taught Bible studies on campus, saying he wanted his students to “see the Great Creator in the smallest and apparently the most insignificant things.” Off-campus he helped local farmers to be more sustainable and self-sufficient, writer Jennifer Woodruff Tait reports. This included helping them to enrich soil through crop rotation and planting a variety of crops. These efforts resulted in new products made from peanuts, sweet potatoes, and cowpeas. Unfortunately, his efforts to develop commercial applications did not succeed, and his approach was not more widely adopted until decades later.
Facial recognition bias Fast Company magazine’s September issue has a fascinating 7
story about computer scientist Joy Buolamwini. Her successful efforts to get Amazon and Microsoft to tell police to quit using flawed facial recognition software that they developed have brought her international notice. The problem with the products, as Buolamwini discovered in her graduate study research at MIT, is that facial recognition systems developed by Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft, are significantly less accurate in classifying darker female faces compared to white men’s faces. One study she did found that Amazon’s Rekognition product misclassified women as men almost 20 percent of the time, and darker skinned women as men almost one-third of the time. Bulolamwini’s TED talk about her Algorithimic Justice League organization has been watched over 1.3 million times. She is also profiled in the documentary Coded Bias.
Pandemic gift matching Sarasota ecommerce retailer JMX Brands had a record month for sales in April, at a time when many businesses were struggling, and unemployment was soaring. Wanting to give back, the company, owned by MEDA board member Jim Miller and his wife, Linse, decided to donate money to a local food bank, and challenged employees to join them. Through personal and corporate matches of employee gifts, more than $4,000 was raised. The business also sold facemasks made by one of its Amish furniture vendor partners on the DutchCrafters website with profits from each sale going to All Faiths Food Bank.
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The Marketplace September October 2020
Seeds of Drought Kenyan research station develops new maize seeds to combat pests ravaging African crops Amanda Little, professor of journalism and science writing at Vanderbilt University, a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, will be the keynote speaker at MEDA’s first ever virtual convention in November. Little’s reporting on energy, technology and the environment has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Wired, Rolling Stone and Bloomberg Businessweek. The following excerpt is taken from the chapter SEEDS of DROUGHT in her book THE FATE OF FOOD — HOW WE’LL EAT IN A BIGGER, HOTTER, SMARTER WORLD. WEMA, which is mentioned in the second column of this excerpt, is an acronym that refers to the Water Efficient Maize for Africa program. THE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH STATION in the Kenyan town of Kitale, just north of Navakholo, resembles a small college campus. Rambling lawns with bristly yellow grass surround several low-slung cement buildings containing laboratories, offices, and dormitories. In a corner of this campus is a patch of farmland about half the size of a football field bordered by a chain-link fence with a coil of barbed wire on top. Inside the fence is a rectangular grid of thousands of towering maize stalks glittering green against the dun-colored surroundings. About half the crops are variants of Monsanto’s controversial GMO crop, Bt-corn. Dr. Dickson Liyago, who heads up the maize-breeding The Marketplace September October 2020
program for WEMA, has brought four scientists from his team to collect data for their study-inprogress. Bt-corn was originally developed to deter the European
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stem borer, and the scientists are testing the efficacy against the moth’s pernicious cousin, the African stem borer, along with the fall armyworm, which is decimating maize crops across the continent. They’re measuring the efficacy of the Bt-maize seeds against the leading maize seeds on the market, which have conventional pestresistance properties. When they complete the Bt-maize research, Liyago will move into phase two of the research, replacing the plants in this test field with DroughTela maize that contains “stacked” traits for both pest resistance and drought tolerance. Liyago unbolts two padlocks fastened to the metal chains looped around the front gate of the chainlink fences and swings it open. We enter the test plot, passing signs that read BIOHAZARD and AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, and step into a small shed where we suit up in long kelly-green laboratory coats (if pollen from the test crops collects on our coats, it’ll be visible against the green background and more easily removed.) We take turns stepping into a shallow tray of antibacterial liquid to disinfect our shoes from pollen we might be carrying by foot into the research area. Liyago leads us into the labyrinthine cornfield. The maize stalks in their narrow, quite tunnellike rows are so green and healthy they seem to glow. They stretch so high above us the sky is barely visible. It feels at once like bushwhacking through a jungle and
like walking through library stacks. The plants in every plot and row are meticulously spaced, ordered, and enumerated, each one with a sign describing its genetic pedigree. A “border crop” of five outer rows of maize surrounds the test area, helping protect against the inflow and outflow of wind-borne pollen. Within the test area there are six contiguous rectangular plots, each with a different variety of maize seeds that contain the Bt trait. Interspersed within the rows of GMO plants are the same seed varieties, but lacking the Bt trait, as well as rows of the leading maize varieties currently on the market. The researchers call these plants “commercial checks.” “I have a test for Amanda!” Dr. Liyago shouts. He’s a short, reedy man in his seventies with metal-rimmed glasses and a broad smile that shows every well-aligned tooth in his mouth, including the hindmost molars. “Tell us, which among these plants is genetically modified?” he asks. I falter, still thinking about bushwhacking and book stacks. “Walk down the row and look closely,’ Liyago urges. I begin to see that every three rows, the maize leaves are riddled with tiny ragged holes, like fabric that’s been blasted with shrapnel. In the neighboring three rows, the maize leaves have no holes to speak of. “These?” I venture, pointing at some of the hole-free plants. “Nzuri!” says Liyago. “You are right. Look at how robust they are — strong growth characteristics and vigor. But the adjacent neighbors are suffering. The Swiss-cheese leaves have clearly been attacked!” Liyago’s colleague Dr. Omar Odongo rips open a corn husk on the Bt-maize and brushes away the silk to show the rows of perfect, pearly kernels. Then he shucks a cob of a non-Bt Plant and the
Author Amanda Little will be the keynote speaker at MEDA's virtual convention in November.
kernels are missing or misshapen; there’s a gooey brown patch where a fat gray caterpillar rests, days away from morphing into a moth. “The presence of the gene in the Bt plant is like an on-off switch for the pest,” says Odongo. “Larvae nibble a few bites of leaf and die.” The fall armyworm is native to the Americas and didn’t make its way to Kenya until 2016. It’s 9
now in more than thirty African countries and spreading rapidly. The caterpillar has caused billions in losses of maize, sorghum, and other staple crops on the African continent since the beginning of 2017 — a big-deal hit for farmers struggling to survive. Most conventional methods for controlling these pests fall short. Those who can afford pesticides The Marketplace September October 2020
use them, such as fenthion, an organo-phosphate that may be toxic to the human nervous system. They’d do far better to apply the chemical version of Bt, yet it’s too expensive for smallholder farmers. The cheaper chemicals like fenthion are used in high doses to reach the innermost recesses of the leaves and stalks. In the case of the stem borer, the female moth lays about two hundred eggs at a time, embedding them deep at the base of the maize leaves where the cobs form. The larvae hatch in days, feeding on the leaves and then tunneling into stalks and cobs, where they grow and pupate. Farmers who can’t afford chemicals often attempt to manually sprinkle ash or sand, a pinch at a time, into the whorls of every leaf on their young corn plants — tens of thousands of leaves in a one-acre farm — hoping that the barriers will kill the larvae and prevent them from entering the stalks. That painstaking process rarely works. “The results of the trials so far are good,” Liyago tells me. “The Bt-maize is producing yields about 40 percent higher than the non-Bt plants.” It’s an example, he adds, of achieving a result with a GMO that you can’t get with a conventional crop. The transgene saves the small farmers money and time, cuts the use of toxic chemicals, and increases yields, food security, and farmer income, says Liyago. When I ask him about the negative impacts of Bt-maize pollen on beneficial insects like butterflies, and of the threat of genetic drift, he waves it off, saying that fifteen years of testing has shown that the corn doesn’t contain enough toxin to harm beneficial insects. I corroborated his take with reporting in the science journal Nature. (Jane Rissler, with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Nature, The Marketplace September October 2020
“We are pleased it looks like transgenic corn pollen is harmless.”) While Liyago calls Bt-maize “an economic and environmental win” for Kenya, he’s more cautious about the potential benefits of Monsanto’s drought-tolerance trait. If you’ve ever tended a house plant, you may have noticed that some are forgiving when you forget to water them — ferns, ivies and
The (fall armyworm) caterpillar has caused billions in losses of maize, sorghum, and other staple crops on the African continent since the beginning of 2017 — a big-deal hit for farmers struggling to survive.
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succulents, for example, can perk back up when they get a drink — while others are less tolerant. The reasons for a plant’s resilience to water scarcity are hard to understand. Since the mid-seventies, companies and institutions have poured billions of dollars and decades of research into water efficiency and drought tolerance in plants, and the only definitive thing they can agree on is that “it’s really complicated,” Mark Edge of Bayer tells me. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, a senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network and a vocal critic of GMOs, says it galls her that GMOs are being pushed as a possible solution to drought when there’s still little evidence that drought tolerance can be engineered into plants: “It’s just dishonest.” She references Jian-Kang Zhu, a molecular geneticist at Purdue University, who said, “Drought stress is as complicated and difficult to plant biology as cancer is to mammalian biology.” There’s no single gene that governs the way plants respond to drought stress, but rather “a whole complex suite of them, and they differ from plant to plant,” says Edge. He admits that the inthe-field results of Monsanto’s DroughtGard seeds (the U.S. equivalent of Tela) have been mixed. During some drought events in the American Northwest, the crop has performed very well, yet on midwestern farms with similar water shortages, it hasn’t. He isn’t sure exactly why. To solve the mystery of drought tolerance in plants, scientists have to consider the stages of development in which the plants need the most water. “We know that if drought strikes maize within two weeks before the flowering stage, it can suspend pollen development,”
Liyago tells me. “Within two weeks after the flowering stage, it can retard grain development. Even if you bring water back after those critical periods, most plants can’t recover.” They also consider the mechanisms plants use to draw water up from the soil. Longer roots can tap deeper water reserves; wider and more numerous circulatory vessels can be more efficient at carrying water from stem to leaves. Photosynthesis is also a critical factor: when plant leaves open their stomata to take in carbon dioxide, they also release water vapor as part of a natural cooling process. Understanding the methods that plants use to survive environmental stresses is “the next big frontier” for botanists, says Pamela Ronald. She and her team have spent five years trying to
develop drought-tolerant crops. The challenge is so complex and the research so costly, they’re hard to tackle without an R&D budget the size of Bayer’s or Syngenta’s. Yet a growing vanguard of university and government scientists is entering the fray. At the University of Cape Town in South Africa, researchers are studying Myrothamnus flabellifolius, a so-called resurrection plant that can bounce back from near total water deprivation. The plant can lose up to 95 percent of its water — less than the water contained in seed — and enter a period of dormancy or hibernation for months or even decades, then spring to life when rains return. Through genetic modification, the researchers hope to bring this miraculous skill to teff, a native African grain that’s high in protein. Scientists at Technion
University in Israel have meanwhile successfully engineered similar “resurrection” genes into tobacco. Elsewhere, scientists in Argentina have developed a soy plant spliced with genes from a naturally drought-tolerant sunflower, and recently gained approval from the Argentinian government for commercial cultivation. At the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, scientist Xiaohan Yang is studying the way plants like the agave cactus store and manage water, in hopes of developing crops with these abilities. If he succeeds, vast tracts of desert could become productive farmland.
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“Seeds of Drought” from THE FATE OF FOOD: WHAT WE’LL EAT IN A BIGGER, HOTTER, SMARTER WORLD by Amanda Little, copyright © 2019 by Amanda Little. Used by permission of Harmony Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Virtual convention to feature panel, seminars, tours MEDA's Nov. 6-7 convention will be held via EventMobi. This interactive platform is the most user-friendly way to get people together virtually, said Carol Eby-Good, MEDA’s manager of constituent engagement. “Because we can’t gather in person, EventMobi allows us an online platform to do the next best thing,” she said. Technical support will be available prior to the event to ensure participants can log in. The EventMobi platform has three panels in one screen. One is for navigating the schedule and finding exhibitors or other attendees. A second panel is for watching presentations and a third allows for talking with others via chat or video call. Aside from keynote speakers, highlights will include a panel of clients from three MEDA projects.
• Margaret Komen, on African markets. managing director of Jarrod Goentzel, Mace Food, is a partner director of the of the MSAWA (Equitable Massachusetts InProsperity through Private stitute of Technology’s Sector Development) work Humanitarian Supply in Kenya. Chain Lab, will • Rudaina Haddad of discuss the impact on BookAgri.com is a partner Ugandan agricultural of the Jordan Valley Links markets. project in Jordan. His talk will • Hafsatu Ibrahim is a explain how the member of the No Retreat pandemic affected Jarrod Goentzel No Surrender women’s market indicators like co-op, a partner of the Nigeria cross-border trade and commodity WAY (Youth Entrepreneurship and prices across the supply chain. Women’s Empowerment) program. MEDA staffers Musa Lubango, Convention attendees can Tanzanian country director, and choose three seminars from a Fiona MacKenzie, senior project dozen offered in four tracks manager for Eastern, Southern -international development, and Central Africa, will talk about faith and business, professional COVID-19 impacts in Tanzania. development, business issues. The convention will also offer Several seminars will explore virtual tours of MEDA supporterthe COVID-19 pandemic’s impact owned businesses.
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The Marketplace September October 2020
The Nigeria WAY project takes several approaches to empower women and youth in Bauchi State in northern Nigeria. WAY supports women and youth agroprocessors in three food value chains in Bauchi State: rice, soybean and peanuts. Clockwise from top right: 1)A woman winnows rice in preparation for learning to parboil the rice. During winnowing, the breeze removes the chaff, leaving the rice to drop to the sheet. 2)The images being drawn are part of training in a Gender Actions Learning System (GALS) program. GALS is a gender equality empowerment system. 3)Farmers watch water being removed from parboiled rice. The small image above it shows stones that need to be removed from the rice. 4)Women take part in a savings and loan group, learning financial literacy and supporting each other’s businesses with small loans.
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The Marketplace September October 2020
For safer and more profitable harvests MEDA partners train farmers how to battle deadly toxins. Rural farmers in Nigeria, particularly women and youth, are hard hit by a number of environmental and market factors. Aflatoxins, a family of toxins produced by fungi which are abundant in warm and humid regions of the world, attack crops such as groundnuts (peanuts), maize and rice. This reduces the quality and price paid for these crops. The toxins take a human toll as well. Aflatoxins are responsible for 30 percent of Africa’s liver cancer cases, the Economic Community of Western African States parliament was told in late 2019. A partnership between MEDA’s Nigeria WAY program and several incountry partners is training farmers to overcome these challenges. Nigeria WAY is a five-year MEDA project. It supports 16,000 small-scale businesses and entrepreneurs, particularly those run by women and youth, to improve their business performance and the business environment in the agricultural sector in Bauchi state in Northern Nigeria. The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada and donations from MEDA supporters. Nigeria WAY’s in-country partners have trained many farmers how to address the aflatoxin problem using a new biopesticide. Aflasafe, which was invented and produced in Nigeria, works from the plot to the plate to cut contamination by 80 to 100 percent and keep foods safe. No Retreat No Surrender is a women’s co-operative that farms groundnuts, both individually and as a group. They received training The Marketplace September October 2020
Nigerian groundnut farmers receive training on using a bio-pesticide to combat aflatoxins.
in using the biopesticide and now receive a higher price for their crops, as they can deliver aflatoxinfree groundnuts. No Retreat No Surrender is sharing their experience with other women’s co-ops in Bauchi state. It is providing guidance and training to others who are growing groundnuts. Groundnuts harvested after applying the biopesticide have a better look and taste, they say. The No Retreat No Surrender co-op won a contract to supply 3.3 14
tons of groundnuts a month and are being paid a premium price 11 percent higher than the prevailing market rate, improving the group’s profitability. Other clients who are using the biopesticide and selling groundnuts to the co-op are also receiving a similar price premium. No Retreat No Surrender is buying the biopesticide from middlemen for resale to farmers in Bauchi. The co-op regularly receives training requests from women’s groups in other areas.
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Beyond COVID-19: Towards a new international development paradigm By Dorothy Nyambi Our world has changed significantly since I started at MEDA in 2018. As we wrestle with the unprecedented implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the movements for racial justice in the US and around the world, the effects on us individually and collectively have been significant. The development sector is going through a renewed wave of societal changes — shifts in geopolitical power distribution, a surge in nationalism, lessening trust in institutions, and increased demands to prove results — and we need to adapt. MEDA is redesigning our programs to adapt to the ongoing challenges of working in a fractured, inequitable world. We are reflecting on how to be part of the decolonizing of international development, working in partnership and shifting power from the global north to the global south (e.g. designing projects beginning with those whom we seek to serve). Positive global change will be achieved through listening, partnership and collaboration. At MEDA, we are optimistic and ready to leverage the opportunity to multiply our impact. We remain committed to keep MEDA supporters informed of these conversations, so together as partners, we can all be part of this UN decade of action (2020 – 2030). As we seek opportunities to thrive and navigate these changes together, I invited four of my peers to reflect on the changing role of the iNGO (International Non-Governmental Organization). I asked: What new
MEDA president Dorothy Nyambi
norms do iNGOs need to embrace in the next 5-10 years if they want to stay relevant and legitimate? Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President & CEO Women’s World Banking We are amid a profound and global struggle between forces that represent a broadening towards international alignment and cooperation, and those that represent a narrowing towards national self-interest. We are seeing eddying currents around social and racial justice, immigration, and the economy. Iskenderian 15
Plus, the global pandemic has had profound implications for everyone on the planet. COVID-19 has exposed many of society’s underlying inequalities. It’s even more important for us to double our efforts, encouraging collaboration, and keeping the issue high on the public agenda against many competing, incredibly worthy issues, such as racial equality and climate change. How do we respond? The first and most powerful tool at our disposal is ourselves — our people and our work. The quality of the work we do, the positive change it has on women’s lives, and the communication back to constituents highlighting that change is critical. The second tool is to perform to the highest and most transparent ethical standards. We must operate with the greatest integrity. Third, we must be local. The only way we will make sustainable change is to be on the ground, working with local partners and institutions on their terms and in their way. Philanthropic colonialism does not work. We all need to take time to pause, educate ourselves, ask hard questions, and accept the ways in which we need to change. It is critical for iNGOs to keep focused on our core mission and purpose. The Marketplace September October 2020
Barbara Grantham, President & CEO CARE Canada iNGO’s must go through a period of profound change and transformation if they want to remain relevant, continue to have impact and realize their mission. This year’s disruptions have highlighted Grantham the deep, enduring inequalities in our world — locally, nationally, and globally. These are not problems ‘over there’. They are here, in our very midst. The emergence of the global south, the increasing understanding of embedded racism and systemic discrimination, the enduring power of white privilege, the profoundly inequitable policies of funders, and the practices of well-meaning but not-always-helpful iNGO’s — all of these movements, trends and ‘winds of change’ are coalescing. While there has been profound sadness, there is also profound Warshauer opportunity in front of us for meaningful and REAL change. But it does mean change — change that is disruptive, substantial and will make many of us uncomfortable. That change means giving up power — economic power, power based on the privilege that comes with race, formal education, gender. It means we will have to do ‘our work’ differently. Our organizations will be smaller, for resources are not needed here in the global north. They are needed — and have FAR greater impact — in the south. The Marketplace September October 2020
We will need to measure ‘success’ differently — not by the size of our budgets or how much money we raise. Success will come from defining new metrics, based on principles of true equality, genuine empowerment, and meaningful change. We seek relevance and impact. That means thinking about and doing our work differently.
needs to evolve. We need to do less and less direct implementation and more and more brokering, crowding in, and facilitating the growing number of strong local implementers and service providers. We are working more with market systems facilitation approaches and doing less direct implementation than ever before — a healthy trend. However, even in a post-COVID world, we will remain connected across borders. We need to be open to collaboration among governments, local and international businesses, and the social sector.
William Warshauer of TechnoServe Jacqueline Novogratz, President The legitimacy of iNGOs is be& CEO Acumen ing called into question from multiMore than ever, our world ple angles, including needs individuals with moral cases such as the WE imagination and a will to face the Charity scandal and beautiful struggle of creating a those who advance more inclusive, just, and sustainan agenda of nativable world. There is no single sector ism/nationalism. that can claim responsibility, either Poverty alleviation for the problems we face, or the is too important to solutions we need. All must recbe funded based on ognize that this is a time to work feelings or beliefs. differently, to upend traditional We need much better structures so that we can listen to data on impact and voices that have been marginalized on the durability of and challenge the status quo. that impact, to drive This will mean using capital investment decisions in new ways to create value for all for development. stakeholders, not just shareholders, We need betand empowering leaders that demter industry standard metrics so onstrate moral imagination, rather iNGOs can use common methodthan traditional markers of power ologies and report compaand influence. rable impact figures. We need It is an donors to help drive that and exciting time for to push farther on pay for iNGOs, many of performance. whom have built At their best, iNGOs deep ties to local can bring a powerful mix of communities and international best practices, entrepreneurs innovation and investment that will be and deep knowledge of the so important local context to help provide in building a effective programs. No model more inclusive is perfect. and sustainable The role of the iNGO future. Novogratz
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Sourcing local Indiana motorcycle manufacturer relies on Amish craftsmen to build components for their products By Marshall V. King GOSHEN, Indiana — When Richard Worsham and Devin Biek founded Janus Motorcycles in 2011, they knew they could get just about anything machined, welded, or crafted for their bikes in this part of the world. The two started building small 250cc motorcycles with a reliable engine made in China that is used on motorcycles across the globe. These aren’t massive motorcycles that embody the notion that more is better. If anything, they embody the “more with less” notion that combines style and function in a vehicle produced by a company that is not only focused on growth, but also doing it right. Janus’s production facility and showroom are located in a former dry cleaner in downtown Goshen, across from City Hall and near The Electric Brew. The employees build the motorcycles by hand with components that come from Italy and China, but from also nearby shops operated by Amish craftsmen. The founders of the company have come to rely on half a dozen shops near Nappanee and Syracuse in southern Elkhart County to make leather and metal components such as the exhaust, frame and fenders. They have a wealth of knowledge and skills, said Worsham. Like other businesses, Janus shut down most production for six weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the company
Devin Biek (left) and Richard Worsham founded Janus Motorcycles in 2011. 17
The Marketplace September October 2020
leadership was concerned about what would happen. The start of the year had strong sales. They had started going to trade shows and continued with Discovery Days, a weekend experience for the potential buyer that brought people from out of state to Goshen to visit the shop, test-ride the motorcycles and experience the city. Worsham had started seeing issues with suppliers delivering components from other parts of the world because of Covid-19. “It was impacting us. We didn’t know if we would get engines in on time,” he said. They worked harder to find alternate sources for some parts, but sometimes just waited. An order of shock absorbers sat in a shipping container in Los Angeles, taking double the usual amount of time to find its way to Goshen. Janus, like any start-up that lasts and grows, has been resilient. It’s now built and sold more than 600 motorcycles. It went through a long process, with the help of a vendor in nearby New Paris, Indiana, helping craft
Janus Motorcycles are built by hand in Goshen, Indiana.
the intricate carburetor parts to achieve certification from the Environmental Protection Agency. The strong sales in the early months of 2020 didn’t last, as Covid-19 became more real in the United States. “And then the bottom fell out,” said Longenbaugh. Their staff had grown to 17 people, including part-timers. The service department includes John Swartzendruber and Ron “Woody” Shoemaker, who were floormates at Goshen College in the 1970s. Shoemaker restored a wrecked motorcycle in the
Richard Worsham (l) and Devin Biek grew their love for motorcycles into a thriving business. The Marketplace September October 2020
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Yoder dormitory and he and his floormate were known for enjoying their motorcycles in a variety of mischievous ways on campus. For six weeks, during Indiana’s stay-at-home order from the governor, employees worked from home if they could and the company paid them even if they couldn’t do their normal roles. There were two weeks with few sales, but then people were spending a lot of time online and found Janus, a small company that keeps getting attention from big outlets. • Google sent a photo and video team to northern Indiana in 2017 to feature Janus for how it uses online tools to sell motorcycles. The weeklong visit resulted in a video that Google used to promote Janus in a series picking one business from each US state. You can watch it at this link: Meda.org/google • In September 2019, Biek and Worsham appeared at a “Made in America” event at the White House, meeting President Trump, and then appearing on Fox News. Watch at this link: Meda.org/ foxnews (Worsham said he got grief from both liberal and conservative friends about that trip but had productive conversations on why a small company would accept such
invitations.) • In December 2019, Biek and Worsham visited Burbank, California with a motorcycle for a taping of “Jay Leno’s Garage.” The former late night talk show host is a motorcycle geek who rode the Halcyon 250 Devin Biek looks over the frame of a Janus motorcycle. for the episode, which aired on February 16, 2020. motorcycles to six. Worsham hopes See it at: Meda.org/Leno that by September, the team will Those appearances didn’t hurt be producing seven a week in the a company that has put a lot into small shop. how it markets itself online but has Steve Brenneman, a serial no dealers. entrepreneur who has been In early April, a bevy of orders helping Janus as a business started coming in and the wait for consultant, said the company someone who ordered a motorcycle is still in start-up mode. “Their grew to three months. By mid-July, strength is they understand it had fallen back to six weeks as the product really well and the production grew from five finished customers they sell to,” Brenneman
said. “They’re product guys. They’re designers of cool things, not just motorcycles but backpacks and leather goods.” Biek told Google that they dreamed of building motorcycles but doing it their way. They loved the idea of building these bikes and over time have built that into a business that employs more people and offers more work to their suppliers. The unique downtown location and a team that goes next door for coffee every morning is part of the cool factor that attracts customers, Brenneman said. The challenge is how to ramp up production of a personalized product to be able to sell more bikes, he said. “That push and pull is at the heart of a lot of entrepreneurial companies.” Longenbaugh said the company’s goal is simple. “We just try to get as many people as we can on our bikes.” The company canceled in-person events such as Discovery Days, but was able to hold a worldwide rally digitally in July with videos, meetups, and scavenger hunts. The company leaders want to do more than sell motorcycles. “The end goal of the business is more than a financial transaction. It’s about creating a community, even a family,” said Worsham, who added, “Our faith is present in the business through our actions and our desires to do right by people and the world.”
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Richard Worsham adjusts motorcycle handlebars. His firm is ramping up production to meet demand. 19
Marshall V. King is a freelance writer based in Goshen, Indiana.
The Marketplace September October 2020
Online advice and payments Kenyan farmers overcome pandemic restrictions through use of digital tools By Joseph Kuria Kenyan farmers and a MEDA partner firm they supply are embracing digital tools to minimize face-to-face business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kenya’s first COVID-19 case was reported March 13. By March 25, the Kenyan government had announced a nation-wide dusk to dawn curfew and stopped travel to counties that were recording new cases. One such county was Kilifi — home of Equator Kenya Limited. Kilifi is located north and northeast of Mombasa, Kenya’s secondlargest city. Equator Kenya is a lead firm partner with MEDA’s M-SAWA project. (M-SAWA is short for Maendeleo Sawa — Swahili for equitable prosperity through private sector development). M-SAWA is a seven-year, $29.2 million project supported by Global Affairs Canada, other institutional partners, and contributions from individual MEDA supporters. Equator is an agribusiness company that exports African Bird’s Eye (ABE) chilis supplied by over 7,000 farmer producers in Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu and Kwale counties. MEDA provides financial incentives to Equator so it will provide technical assistance and support to its farmer suppliers. All of the areas where Equator’s suppliers live and work have been affected by COVID-19. “COVID-19 hit us really hard at a time when we would be mobilizing farmers for the new planting season, registering new farmers, The Marketplace September October 2020
Farmers spread out African bird's eye chilis.
distributing seed, signing contracts and following up with production advice,” said Almut Van Casteren, Equator Kenya’s CEO. “This seemed impossible for us during this period as we did not want to put our staff or the farmers at risk, especially being at the coast which is considered to be, next to Nairobi, one of the virus epicentres.” Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Equator started using eProd, a Kenyan-produced digital management solution for agribusiness, to make transactions with farmers more accurate and efficient. eProd was developed by a Kenyan chili consolidator. Equator was frustrated with the lack of software to deal with thousands of farmer suppliers and the high 20
demands of the export market, the company’s website says. Use of eProd has deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This tool has allowed Equator to move away from keeping hard copies of produce collection receipts. Staff now digitally input the amount of chilis produced by farmers. That data can easily be integrated with the system for payments to farmers through individual M-Pesa (a mobile, phone-based money transfer service) accounts or bank accounts. Previously, Equator staff met farmers to complete produce collections and make payments, provide trainings at demo farms and at individual farms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Equator Kenya has relied more on technology to
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced Kenyan farmers to rely more on digital tools.
Before Equator deposited money directly, Bendera would individually call each farmer to hand over their payment in cash. He is pleased that it now takes only a short time to pay all 170 members in his farmer group. Farmers can deliver their produce to the collection centre individually, not Equator staff show how digital tools connect them to farmers. in large groups, support its supply chain and keep with the group leader inspecting staff and farmers safe. and confirming receipt. They can Charo M Charo, a chili farmer also access their money remotely for Equator, is happy to receive his without having to travel to payment and advice as usual, even collection centres together. when physical visits are not possible. Such group travel would inBendera Chembe Katsui, a crease the risk of exposure and the farmer group leader, is receiving likelihood of contracting COVID-19. feedback from farmers whenever Equator has also shifted the they receive payment, which way it mobilizes farmers by using makes his work easier. the SMS text messaging service. 21
The firm uses texts to tell farmers where to get inputs (resources used in farm production, such as chemicals, equipment and seeds) they need in a central location. “Equator issues seeds to farmer group leaders and key stakeholders and farmers can then collect these seeds in smaller groups to begin production,” said Van Casteren, Equator’s CEO. “We then share weekly SMS messages with the farmers, providing them with production advice and informing them what to do at what time. The farmers are very positive about this and the majority of them are following our instructions. This revised process has yielded eight metric tons of chili produce so far.” As COVID-19 has slowed Kenya’s economy, Equator believes that by increasingly embracing technology, businesses have an excellent way to work more efficiently.
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Joseph Kuria is an environment officer with MEDA’s M-SAWA project. The Marketplace September October 2020
Review
Being your own boss Author explores what motivates the self-employed The Soul of an Entrepreneur. Work and life beyond the startup myth By David Sax (PublicAffairs, 2020. 289pp., $28US) David Sax’s background gives him considerable life experience to frame his examination of what makes entrepreneurs tick, and why they get up in the morning. A freelance writer and author, his partner is also self-employed. His grandparents owned their own business, and his father runs a law firm. The term entrepreneur, he explains, was first described in 1730, based on a 13th century French verb that means to do something. The “something” that the media and popular imagination often cite is the Silicon Valley dream of launching a firm, raising lots of money, and cashing out. But that notion, which he examines and demystifies, overlooks most people around the world who take risks to provide useful goods and services. For Sax, true entrepreneurs are people who “fixed holes in my roof, baked my bread, designed my website, changed my tires and cut my hair.” Despite the attention given to entrepreneurship by countless business schools, magazines, books, and TV shows such as Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank, fewer people are going into business for themselves than was the case decades ago, he suggests. Only one out of 10 Americans are starting their own business now, half as many as when Ronald Reagan was US president in the 1980s. Entrepreneurship is a constant process of soul searching, he says. His quest to understand entrepreneurs The Marketplace September October 2020
takes him to visit remarkable people pursuing their dreams throughout North and South America. Their stories are compelling. He describes both Silicon Valley startups and immigrant businesspeople starting over, including Syrian restaurant operators in Toronto, and Peace by Chocolate in rural Nova Scotia (whose spokesman Tareq Hadhad gave a keynote address at MEDA’s 2017 convention.) Sax visits the owner of a Pennsylvania conveyor belt manufacturer who found purpose in helping his workers gain ownership stakes in the firm. He spends time with a family-owned winery in Argentina, and a California cattle rancher. He also visits a New Hampshire serial entrepreneur who is devoting his senior years to building a business that uses blockchain technology to trade affordable energy worldwide. Some businesspeople start lifestyle businesses to fund the lifestyle ambitions of their owners, such as the woman who operates a bakery at Rockaway Beach in New York City so she can surf. Among his discoveries: • Entrepreneurs are happier with their work than employees, even when those employees earn more in wages than the sole proprietors can receive from their labors. • Minority women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the US. Black women own more businesses than their male counterparts. But those enterprises tend to be smaller, less 22
profitable and find it harder to raise capital to grow. Sax briefly mentions Madam CJ Walker, who built a business selling hair products to become the first African American millionaire (look up her history or the Netflix TV series.) He visits New Orleans to spend time with modern day beauty products entrepreneur and philanthropist Jessica Dupart. Over one-third of people working after age 75 are selfemployed, he notes. Some of these folks have no other option, but many others want the flexibility and purpose their ventures provide. “Being an entrepreneur… is an identity intertwined with complicated emotions, swinging between pride and loathing, joy and fear, and the other twists of the roller coaster we strap ourselves into every day we get to work for ourselves,” he concludes. This book is fascinating reading. - MS
Comments? Would you like to comment on anything in this magazine, or on any other matters relating to business and faith? Send your thoughts to mstrathdee@ meda.org
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The Marketplace September October 2020
The Marketplace September October 2020
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