"We Cannot Succeed When Half of Us Are Left Back"

Message from the CEO

“I raise up my voice,” she said, speaking matter-of-factly into the microphone during her first speech at the United Nations back in 2013, “not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard... We cannot succeed when half of us are held back.”

She, of course, is Malala. A 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai, to be exact. . . . 

 Financing the Future of Coffee

In a special report on financing farm renovation, Root Capital shares insights from its Coffee Farmer Resilience Initiative.

Learn how leading coffee companies, donors and impact investors are helping smallholder farmers build more resilient livelihoods.

Learn more here.

Announcing the 2015 Women in Agriculture Impact Report

In 2012, we set the target of reaching 200,000 women by the year 2016.

We are pleased to report that we have reached this target a full year ahead of schedule.

Learn more in our 2015 Women in Agriculture Initiative Impact Report.
 

 New and Noteworthy

• Root Capital recently disbursed its 2,000th loan, to CAFICO, a 400-farmer coffee cooperative in Honduras. Follow this link to go behind the scenes of the loan process underpinning every loan we make.

• We recently welcomed Peter Bernard to the executive team as Root Capital’s first-ever chief operating officer! Read more about Peter’s experience and his long-standing relationship with Root Capital on our blog.

• What value does big data provide small-scale farmers? In his latest Forbes.com column, Root Capital CEO Willy Foote explores the rapidly evolving and dynamic field of agricultural technology, or AgTech.

• Mike McCreless, Root Capital’s director of strategy and impact, recently published the final segment of a three-part series on lean research on Next Billion. Mike’s article explores how lean research can guide client-centric impact evaluation practices that create value for participants.

• We recently shared the story of Kenia Ubeda, the general manager of a coffee cooperative in Nicaragua, who was told time and time again that she couldn’t succeed because she’s a woman. Visit our blog Back Roads to Boardrooms to learn more of Kenia’s story.

• In this guest blog post, Maya Winkelstein, executive director of Open Road Alliance, a Root Capital supporter, discusses the organization’s investment strategy and our evolving relationship.

• Along with social enterprise experts from Omidyar Network, ANDE, SSIR, and SOCAP, Root Capital participated in Acumen Fund’s first-ever #ImpactMatters Twitter chat last month. Check out Acumen’s Storify to learn more about what we discussed.

What We’re Reading: Women in Agriculture

A small sample of the many great pieces published in celebration of International Women’s Day:

• Infographic on Women Farmers, Farming First

• Why Gender Matters to Agriculture, CGIAR

• Female Farmers Find Fame on Reality TV Show, NPR

• Without Women, African Agriculture Won’t Withstand Climate Change, Thomson Reuters Foundation News

What We’re Reading: Impact Investing

• Philanthropic Investment Can Mitigate Foreign Exchange Risk, Initiative for Smallholder Finance

• What Impact Investors Can Learn from the Microfinance Industry, The Stanford Social Innovation Review

• Why Social Entrepreneurship Will Be Booming in 2016, ABN AMRO

• Africa Bruised by Investor Exodus, TheWall Street Journal (subscription required)

What We’re Reading: Agricultural Finance

• The Rise of the Data Scientist: How Big Data and Data Science Are Changing Smallholder Finance, Initiative for Smallholder Finance

• African Farmers in the Digital Age, Foreign Affairs

• Foreign Investors Sow Seeds of Change for Uganda’s Farmers, Financial Times (subscription required)

• A Tale of Two Countries: How Dollar’s Strength Distorts Coffee Market, TheWall Street Journal (subscription required)

• Rwanda Tries to Convince Its Citizens to Drink the Coffee They Grow, NPR