30th Anniversary Resilience Ride

Cafédirect is celebrating 30 years this year and the impact we have had together on improving farmers’ lives.

To commemorate the occasion, James Nixon, Cafédirect’s Head of Finance, will be cycling from London to Edinburgh to raise funds for our charity, Producers Direct, which improves the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Each year we share our profits with them. 

Producers Direct’s Covid Resilience Fund

Producers Direct centres on smallholder farmers in Latin America and East Africa leading and developing solutions to the challenges they face - enabling smallholders to transform their farms into sustainable businesses. 

The quality of their crops and the quality of their livelihoods are improved through training centres and access to markets, finance, data and technology.

The impact of Covid is especially devastating for farming and agricultural communities in vulnerable regions around the world. 

Covid is severely reducing their income and productivity, as well as increasing the risk of hunger and malnutrition.

Additionally, there is a serious and significant risk that Covid-19 will cause major food shortages and long-term supply chain sustainability issues. 

Producers Direct’s Covid Resilience Fund helps smallholder businesses recover and increase their income:

£10 provides digital training to 20 women on keeping a kitchen garden to sell and feed their families.

£25 trains 5 youth leaders on setting up a new business.

£50 connects 5 farmers to buyers who pay a fair price for their produce.

£100 provides 10 farmers with access to finance to invest in their farms, such as diversifying into beekeeping or growing avocados.

In 2020, Producers Direct created materials on how to mitigate the risks on the farm which was shared with 4.2 million farmers.

Find out more about Producers Direct’s work: http://www.producersdirect.org/covid-2/

The challenge

On 1 June, James will leave the London Fields Roastery to complete a solo cycle trip to Edinburgh  - a whopping 480 miles!

To celebrate the partner organisations that have been so important to Cafédirect’s journey, his route to Scotland will include the four founders of Cafédirect: Twin Trading (now Sustainable Harvest), Oxfam, Traidcraft and Equal Exchange and the head offices of the Fairtrade Foundation and the Co-operative.

Each of these organisations has been so important – from creating a brave and innovative vision of a commercial business in the UK that could champion and improve the lives of smallholder farmers to supporting Cafédirect over the generations – an extraordinary 30 years!

It turned out to be an incredibly powerful movement that has pioneered an approach of creating a commercially successful business whose ultimate mission has always, and will always remain, the quality of life for the farming communities in coffee, tea and cocoa-growing communities.

The trip will take 5 days and he will arrive on Saturday 5 June at Cafédirect’s registered office in Edinburgh.

PLEASE HELP US RAISE £10k!

Follow James

You can following James on the tour via his Strava profile:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/41752862