In October 2023, members of the Fair Trade Department visited coffee producers in Malawi.

Malawi is a landlocked country located in East Africa, surrounded by Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia. Its area is 118,000 square kilometers, about one-third the size of Japan. It has a relatively low national income and is considered one of the poorest countries in the world.

Zensho, in cooperation with overseas NGOs, began fair trade with coffee producers in Malawi in July 2013.

This visit, the first in nine years since 2014, involved visiting five regional producer cooperatives, each comprised of approximately 3,000 people, located in northern Malawi.

"Since it had been a while since our last visit, there was a slight tension among the female producers at the beginning of our visit. We were able to connect with them by directly explaining Zensho Fair Trade's initiatives and our aspirations, and by joining in on the traditional singing and dancing," said a member of the Fair Trade Department who made the visit.

Zensho imports coffee beans grown by female producers in Malawi as "women's coffee." They use social development costs generated through fair trade to support these women. To date, they have supported organic farming, purchased goats for milk production, and bought cooking equipment.

* social development costs: This refers to the portion of the raw material purchase price that is allocated to various activities aimed at improving the lives of local people.

The producers' cooperative we visited has seen a significant decline in exports to the European market, its main customer base, since 2017, and has only secured contracts with a few companies, including Zensho, for 2023. Measures to stabilize the cooperative's finances are urgently needed.

To improve this situation and further enhance the living standards of producers, we Zensho it is essential to strengthen our ties with producers by directly visiting the region, based on our ongoing fair trade and social support activities. We also recognize that continuing to embody Zensho unique fair trade model, which is beneficial to both producer cooperatives and individual producers, is one of the most important aspects of our work with coffee producers in Malawi.

Zensho will continue its commitment to fair trade, working alongside female producers who are diligently engaged in coffee production as their primary source of income.