It's an incredible joy to be part of work that leads to mutual, all-around flourishing for yourself and your neighbors. Thanks to all of you who've donated, invested, or volunteered to make that kind of work possible!

The young farmer was kind enough to host our team for tea in his home (his mother’s baking was delicious), and then he gave us a tour of his ag business outside the ancient city of Samarkand.

I worked in the railway industry for decades, but that wasn’t as natural as this. Something about farming, it’s inborn for me, it’s who I am. I wanted to get away from the city and to enjoy a quieter life, and farming has made that possible. Thank you for coming to see what we do here.

We believe in help that lasts because we’ve seen how often nonprofit work doesn’t. Before starting AgGrandize, our team spent years doing other work in countries around the world, and we had a front row seat to a lot of unsustainable, unhelpful work that just didn’t last.

So how do we increase the chances that our programming will go the distance and actually be sustainable?

This Farmer First we’re mixing things up and introducing you to Abbas, a young machinist who had just started working with our partners in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia.

Forehead shining with sweat, Abbas set his welding torch down and tugged off his gloves, stepping forward to shake our hands.

Margaret is a Kenyan farmer and co-leads an agricultural business near Mt Kenya with her husband, Haron. Margaret’s farm felt like Eden, it was so lush and vibrantly ‘alive’ in every sense of the word. While we have not partnered with Margaret’s business, Akili Foods, they are a distributor of our latest portfolio partner and impact investment, Long Miles Coffee.