Post by upfromsumdirt on Dec 4, 2006 14:04:05 GMT -5
david robison... son of hall of fame
baseball player, jackie robinson...
David Robinson inspects the coffee fields of
Mshikamano Farmers Group members
David Robinson inspects a coffee bush, whose sweet,
red berries indicate that it is ready for harvest
May 31, 2005
ADF e-news Interview with David Robinson
David Robinson at his home in the village of Bara in southwestern TanzaniaDavid Robinson, son of Hall of Fame second baseman Jackie Robinson, is working with family farmers in rural Tanzania to plant fields of dreams and harvest income from American coffee buyers.
His father changed American history in 1947 when he broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier and won Rookie of the Year honors as a second basemen for the Brooklyn Dodgers. David Robinson, 53, spent his twenties and early thirties buying and restoring single-family homes in Harlem. Then he became a path breaker in his own right when he moved to Tanzania in the 1980s to make good on a childhood dream to live and work in Africa.
He met and married his Tanzanian wife, Ruti Mpunda, negotiated land rights with the residents of Bara Village in southwestern Tanzania’s Mbozi District, cleared hillside land with the help of his son and brothers-in-law, and planted a coffee farm. In 1995, Robinson entered into partnership with 48 local families to establish the Mshikamano Farmers Group (MFG) as an independent coffee-growers association. Over the past decade, MFG’s membership has expanded to 300, and it now sells a significant portion of its harvest directly to American buyers under the Sweet Unity Farms label. ADF recently awarded MFG a grant of US $210,000 to help the group enhance its production and marketing efforts.
In March, ADF e-news interviewed Mr. Robinson about his work with Mshikamano when he visited Washington, DC to participate in a White House ceremony that honored Jackie Robinson’s career achievements.
e-news: There are some striking parallels between your career and your father’s career after baseball. Jackie Robinson was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked in the private sector to create new economic opportunities for African Americans. He helped establish community banks in Harlem and a company that built affordable housing in Brooklyn. He also spent seven years as a vice president of a leading American coffee company.
You worked to build affordable housing in Harlem in the 1970s, and you have spent the past two decades working with Tanzanian farmers to develop a new brand of coffee that creates economic opportunity for rural families. Do you reflect on these parallels?
Robinson: I must admit that I didn’t recognize the parallel between my work as a coffee farmer and my father’s career in the coffee industry until I had been in the business for three or four years. My decision to go into coffee was fundamentally a business decision. I had committed myself to living in Tanzania and to creating an enterprise that would build bonds between my adopted homeland in Africa and my American homeland. Coffee farming offered the best option for developing a strong market connection and a viable export business. It was Tanzania’s leading foreign exchange earner. And America is the greatest coffee-consuming nation on earth.
e-news: What made you decide to live and work in Africa?
Robinson: When I was still a child, I believe I was 12 or 13, I traveled to Africa with my mother on a six-week trip. It was 1965, and we visited Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. I also spent time in Ghana with the family of the American Ambassador. The vast beauty of the land, and the fact that Africa was an enormous continent of all-black people stayed with me. The sights, smells, and textures of the public market in Addis Ababa, the Merkato, mesmerized me. It was filled with jewelry, knives, spears and all sorts of things that would fascinate a young boy. I went to the market every day and bartered with the merchants. I wanted to learn how to buy and trade and sell that way.
I returned to Africa several years later as a young adult sojourner. I was more mature and informed after a year studying at Stanford University. And I decided to go back and explore for myself what I had learned. I took a long overland trip from Kenya to Egypt, and then to Morocco. Then I returned to the United States, my bags filled with Ethiopian goods, and decided that I would become a full-time buyer and seller of African art. Unfortunately, the basic expenses of living quickly ate up my investment capital. I also decided that I needed to be involved in the important issues that were confronting America at that time. I spent a year and a half as a writer and a photographer for an independent film company. Then I worked with United Growth Harlem, a sweat equity building cooperative. It was at that point that I decided I had the business experience I needed to go back to Africa.
e-news: What was your goal when you returned to Africa in the 1980s?
Robinson: I wanted to build business relationships between America and Africa and use those connections to draw African Americans into knowledge of Africa and the potential for economic development and investment in Africa. I appeared on radio programs in the United States and talked about the unique opportunities that Tanzania offered – the richness of its land and people, its export potential as a country on Indian Ocean. Ultimately, I decided to focus my efforts on doing by example. I poured myself into working with rural Tanzanian farmers to build a viable, profitable coffee export business.
e-news: What were your greatest challenges in helping to establish the producers group that became Mshikamano?
Robinson: The first challenge was putting together an effective network of committed partners. I started with a core of family members that included my son, my wife and my brothers-in-law. The second challenge was convincing the village of Bara, where I decided I wanted to settle, that we could work together to build an effective coffee business to benefit the entire community. Acquiring land use rights in Bara was a lot like buying property in Harlem. It was a matter of close, personal negotiation with longtime residents. I started with a proposal to the Tanzanian equivalent of the local block association, and then I presented my request to the equivalent of the neighborhood association. I finally received permission to farm after securing unanimous approval from the members of a council that represented about 40 different family groups. I presented myself to them as a returning African, and I petitioned them in the African tradition of an outsider seeking the right to become an adopted member of the community. The whole process took six to seven months and three or four trips from Dar es Salaam.
The next challenge was developing the Mshikamano Farmers Group, the association of independent coffee growers that manages the planting, cultivation, harvesting and sale of coffee. I learned firsthand just how much investment and technical coordination is required to expand production and get other farmers directly involved.
The final challenge was marketing to the United States, which taught me the importance of having good American partners. If you are going to be producing and selling coffee in Tanzania, that activity in itself is a full-time job. And you need American partners on the opposite shore who can manage sales, marketing, and distribution on your behalf. Finding good, long-term partners has been our greatest challenge, and I think it is a challenge that faces most African businesses seeking to export to the United States.
e-news: How do groups like Mshikamano develop good trading partnerships? What advice would you give to African-owned businesses seeking to trade with American buyers?
Robinson: The challenge for African producers like Mshikamano is to convince potential American partners that they aren’t just a mom-and-pop operation but are effectively linked into a network of small-scale producers who can meet the demands of a big order. They need to show partners that they have done the work on their side: that they can guarantee certain levels of production, that they have adequate quality-control measures in place, that they can meet all export requirements, and that they have the capacity to expand their operations. American buyers know that Tanzanian coffee is a high-quality product. That’s not the question. Their question for African producers is, “Can you deliver it in quantity?”
I also think that the Internet revolution offers African producers a great opportunity to market themselves to potential American buyers at little cost. Websites and e-mail are tremendous for delivering information, making connections and establishing interest.
e-news: Many American consumers want assurance that the money they spend on coffee is helping to raise the incomes of small coffee growers in the developing world. What do consumers need to know about the coffee they buy?
Robinson: It is important for Americans to know that there are indigenous farmer organizations in every coffee-growing country that are working to deliver coffee to American consumers in ways that allow them to receive an equitable and profitable share of the proceeds from the final sale. American consumers have the power through their buying patterns to support or reject these farmer movements. Americans have the ability, and the right, to influence their store's coffee purchases by asking questions about the sources of the coffee they buy, and by making clear their desire to purchase coffees that provides indigenous farmers with income that supports them and allows them to invest in their own development.
