Our ‘year’ – our first year of trading in the US under our own banner – ended on Monday with the usual business of stocktaking and so on. It should be a time to reflect and plan, but small businesses seldom have that luxury. Instead the Divine team have to plunge straight into four weeks of intense marketing activity. It’s the beginning of Fair Trade Month and it’s the time of year when we put a lot of resources into making sure consumers and producers can meet each other. Our experience of marketing both in the US and elsewhere is there is nothing better than to have farmers visit from Ghana and tell their story. When we launched Divine in February, Comfort Kumeah, a member of Kuapa Kokoo’s national executive came over and charmed audiences up and down the eastern seaboard. This month we are hosting Cecilia Donkor and Cecilia Appianim, both cocoa farmers and members of Kuapa Kokoo Farmer’s Union.

Cecilia Donkor kicks off the tour at the Linden Hill Co-op in Minneapolis, MN on October 8. I’m looking forward to hearing what she has to say about her work as a farmer, but also to hearing what she thinks of the United States. Visitors to the US tend to talk about how overwhelming it can be to fly for the first time into New York City ; the noise, the skyline, the pace of life. But the towns, and even more, the wide open spaces of the midwest can be just as impressive. I remember many years ago flying into Minot, ND. It was my first visit to the midwest.

Our arrival coincided with a Viking convention of some kind and the arrivals hall was filled with people wearing viking costume. But what really impressed me was the endless distances of the plains as we drove first across North Dakota and then Montana. It was a sea of grass on which the houses seemed to sail like ships and was quite unlike anything I had seen in Africa.

Spare a thought, then, for the two Cecilias.  It’s a first visit to the US for both of them and these tours are hard work with three or four events a day. When Comfort Kumeah returned to Ghana after her February tour I asked how it went.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘It was very good.’

‘What advice would you give to others doing the same thing ?’

At which she laughed. ‘Make sure you bring good shoes! I walked more even than at home.’

Many of the events on the farmer tour are open to the general public. As well as Minneapolis, they will be visiting Madison, WI, Chicago, IL and the DC area. Find the details here.