Janice Warman

Africa sets an enterprising example

Janice Warman sees projects in Kenya that offer a businesslike response to the impact of climate change

issue 05 December 2009

The hills of Michimikuru are a little piece of heaven: pickers in brightly coloured scarves move slowly through the chest-high bushes of the vivid green tea-fields beneath the slopes of Mount Kenya. But as the saying goes, local colour is other people’s poverty. Just ten kilometres to either side, the desert is encroaching; the mountain’s snowcap is melting; and soaring temperatures, droughts and storms mean the crops of the country’s primary export often fail.

It’s the scene of a remarkable initiative, co-funded by the British fair-trade company Cafédirect and the German Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development, to help the 9,000 small growers of the Michimikuru Tea Company to adapt to climate change. And it’s a good indicator of the direction that businesses in many countries are going to have to take, like it or not. Because waiting for governments to agree and act may simply take too long.

As the climate change conference begins in Copenhagen, this is where Barack Obama really should be: walking the muddy village streets in his father’s native country, talking to tea-growers who also grow kale to sell for a few shillings so they can survive when their main crops fail.

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