Access to good food can change lives. Together, Riverford and our customers contribute to some vital causes - giving not just money, but our time, skills and veg. From helping Ugandan families grow their way out of poverty, to donating tonnes of fresh organic veg to community food banks, we support meaningful change from the ground up.
Ripple Effect
Over £1.15 million 694,380 raised for Ripple Effect!
Our long-time charity partner Ripple Effect was founded in the 1980s by Devon dairy farmers. Today, Ripple Effect work in six African countries: Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Zambia.
Local teams train rural farmers in sustainable farming techniques, gender and social inclusion and business skills, as well as, providing local livestock and seeds. Their work enables disadvantaged families to grow enough food to eat, and more to sell.
The trained farmers then pass on their knowledge to their friends and neighbours, creating positive change that helps the whole community. For every family you help support, three more families will benefit.
“Rural Africa is rich with opportunity: resourceful communities, and land which can produce enough food to feed the continent and beyond,” Ripple Effect say. “It starts on an African farm, but the ripple effect will create a confident, thriving and sustainable rural Africa.”
Donate £1 to Ripple EffectSee your donations in action
Many of our co-owners have been out to see Ripple Effect’s fantastic work in action. See for yourself in this video of Guy Singh-Watson's visit. (In the video, Ripple Effect is referred to by its previous name, Send a Cow).
Responsible carbon project (2022-2037)
To support our climate action work, we’ve partnered with Ripple Effect to plant fruit trees in Wolayta, southern Ethiopia. As well as providing nutritious fruit (and income from selling surplus) for thousands of families, the trees will sequester tonnes of carbon over the next 15 years, helping to reach our Net Zero target.
Push-Pull Project, Uganda (2020-2023)
For four years, Riverford supported Ripple Effect's Rakai Orphans Project, helping orphans and vulnerable children in Raiki, Uganda.
The Rakai Orphans Project was really successful, but Ripple Effect identified that maize loss was a significant barrier to food security. Maize is a staple crop in Uganda, and up to 80% of yields were being lost to stemborer moths and parasitic striga weed.
When it was time to fund a new project, Riverford co-owners voted to support the 'Push-Pull' Project for the next three years, working with the same 400 families we supported through the Rakai Orphans Project.
'Push-Pull' refers to a simple but powerful farming method, where maize is intercropped with Desmodium flowers, which produce a scent that repels the stemborer moth: the 'push' of the name. The Desmodium roots also stop parasitic striga weeds from attaching to the maize roots.
The maize and Desmodium are surrounded by a plant called Brachiara (a livestock fodder), which attracts the moths, encouraging them to lay their eggs. Sticky gum on the Brachiara binds the moth larvae, leaving them unable to hatch; the 'pull' element.
“I had stopped growing maize because of pest damage, but I was excited to start Push-Pull… My maize harvest has already increased, and my cow is now producing 8 litres of milk a day, up from 4.5 litres, thanks to an improved supply of fodder.” – Hadija, who lives in Rakai with her husband and 10 children, including several orphans in her care.
Trialling a new way (2023-2024)
During our long partnership with Ripple Effect, we’ve pledged the funds generously donated by customers and co-owners to various initiatives in Uganda. This is where Guy first encountered farmers working with the charity in the 1990s.
With the Push-Pull Project coming to an end in 2023, we carefully considered how best to direct donations going forward. Together with the Ripple Effect team, we decided that for the next year, our donations will go towards not just one country programme, but to all six countries that Ripple Effect work in. That’s Uganda, Ethiopia, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, and Zambia.
We’re very excited by this change to how we donate, and believe it’s a better way for the money to be used. It will ensure that our impact is broadened, and more adaptable to the evolving needs of the farming communities who Ripple Effect work with.
Chefs in Schools
When we became 100% employee-owned last June, our founder, Guy Singh-Watson, left an £800,000 legacy fund decided to vegetable-centric projects that support communities facing food insecurity and poor access to fresh produce.
Since then a team of co-owners have been exploring how we can use our veg credentials to support long-term projects which tackle these issues, and we are delighted to announce we are working with Chefs in Schools over the next four years in a push to combat food-related health issues in children in Devon and Cornwall.
Chefs in Schools is a UK-based charity dedicated to transforming school food and food education. With many well-known patrons including Thomasina Miers and Yotam Ottolenghi, the organisation collaborates with schools, chefs, local authorities and partners to address childhood obesity, food poverty and food waste and positively impact children's health and wellbeing.
With the worrying statistic that only 18% of UK children (aged 5 to 15) eat 5 portions of fresh fruit and veg per day, we are planning to transform school dinners by ensuring that over 40,000 children in the region have access to nutritious, freshly made meals every day.
Over the coming four years, Riverford and Chefs in Schools will be working together to offer fully funded training courses to schools across the region. As well as shorter training courses, in-depth school kitchen transformations are available, which will see fresh, flavourful and colourful food served within school budgets, with packet mixes and junk food off the menu.
These training courses are part of a wider drive to ‘vegucate’ the future, tackling food-related ill health by teaching children how to grow and enjoy fresh produce.
A note from Guy: "I have spent the last 37 years trying to make good food, grown well accessible to all, but the reality is that a fair price, is not always an accessible price.
“This initiative represents a crucial step towards making good food more accessible, by ensuring as many children in our region as possible can enjoy the benefits of a fresh, vegetable-rich diet. It's about more than just feeding children; it's about teaching them and their families the value of good, wholesome food and where it comes from."
For more information, please visit Chefs in Schools website and why not encourage your children’s or grandchildren’s schools to sign up. Any school in Devon and Cornwall can apply - the training is free and offered to anyone working in a school kitchen.
Fighting hunger & tackling food waste
Food in Community
We donate lots of fresh fruit and veg to Food in Community, who operate in Totnes, Devon (just up the road from our farm). Donating our grade out produce – which isn't quite up to scratch for customers, but is still really good to eat – saves it from going to waste, and allows lots of local people to access good, organic food for free.
Every week, Food in Community's volunteers collect surplus food (mostly organic) from producers and farmers' fields, then get it to wherever it will be most useful. They help around 125 households directly with fruit and veg box deliveries each week. They also deliver organic produce in bulk to food banks, local schools, nurseries, charities and community groups, including:
- Food banks across Teignbridge, the South Hams and Torbay.
- Beyond Borders, a group in Totnes who use Riverford produce to deliver food parcels to asylum seekers across Plymouth.
- An LGBTIA social group
- Youth clubs
- Charity nurseries
- Community cooking groups, including a cooking and lunch club for elderly men living alone.
Food in Community believe their revolutionary system could be replicated anywhere to tackle food poverty and social isolation.
Find out more about Food in Community
