Bill Gates made some news today once again proving that you are changing the world. From the annual economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gates made a pledge to support African coffee farmers, specifically those in Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania.
In one grant, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is promising $47 million to TechnoServe to build wet mills and train farmers to grow high-quality, specialty coffee. Other grants will improve soil and small scale agriculture and infrastructure for exporting the harvests.
The reason these grants make sense to someone like Bill Gates is really from the work you are doing in the specialty coffee industry. You’ve made it obvious that there is a market for the best coffees Africa can produce and that you, and your customers, are willing to pay good prices for those beans. In turn, Gates sees that for what to his foundation is very little money a lot improvement can be made to a lot of people’s lives. He is determined to use market forces to bring about these changes, and that’s exactly what the specialty coffee industry is doing too.
Nice work everybody! Now let’s keep it going.