I’ve been in Ecuador for two weeks now working with a company that has an organic flower farm located about an hour north of Quito. The company is called Organic Blooming and they grow Calla Lilies on about six of their 900 acres of land. It’s a very small and basic operation. About five people work the land and they often have to transport their flowers to the main road by donkey. When I first arrived in Ecuador, I thought I was going to help the farm grow their revenues through improved production and sales, as well as to figure out alternative sources for their unused land.

Details below will be reviewed and where confidentiality is not an issue with business partner details may be posted on the MBAs Without Borders marketing material.
Please describe what MCC does and how it is set up?
MCC makes products from coconut pith and coconut fibre. These are used for horticulture and growing different vegetables and plants. [...]

Brian will be returning to the continent he fell in love with in 2002 to work at an organic flower farm in Quito, Ecuador, called Organic Blooming. The company is looking to grow their business through e-commerce and is also interested in exploring alternative uses of their unused land.

SCFCU is a union, made up of 47 cooperatives representing over 87,000 farmers (I made a mistake in my earlier blog entry when I said they represented 9,000 farmers) and is the second largest coffee producer in Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s largest export is coffee so it’s fair to say that SCFCU has a direct influence on a large portion of the country’s population.

Food: The staple food is ugali, which is ground maize flour, and is commonly eaten with boiled green vegetables (like kale or swiss chard) and meat or chicken. The market carries a number of fresh vegetables and fruits (tomatoes, onions, carrots, pineapple, bananas, oranges, etc). Since we are relatively close to Lake Victoria, fried tilapia are also available.