Highland Harvesters (Ethiopia)

New Investment Announcement

Build God’s Kingdom on Earth
Since 2014, Highland Harvesters and its investors have been producing apples and bringing blessings previously unknown to the people of the southern Ethiopia highlands.

Highland Harvesters is an agribusiness that grows and processes fruit for the flourishing of people and communities across Ethiopia. The orchard, located at the intersection of three people groups who have fought against one another for generations, launched amidst extreme poverty, tribal conflict, and spiritual darkness.

Already, the shoots and buds of restoration are becoming visible as members of all three tribes now work together, planting and cultivating 45,000 apple trees, and worshiping side by side in the orchard on land which previously saw battles and bloodshed.

The first commercial apple orchard in Ethiopia, with mature trees now ready for their first harvest, is pursuing what we call Quadruple Bottom Line (QBL) outcomes impacting economic, social, environmental, and spiritual spheres.

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​Economic Impact: 
The orchard produces hundreds of tons of apples per year, employs over 150 local people (over half are women), creates a market for the apples, and increases both yields and revenue for local farmers.

Social Impact:
The local inhabitants gain access to safe water, education, and health services as well as increased food security and nutritional gain.

Environmental Impact:
The company stewards the land through irrigation and soil management, terraced planting, preventing erosion, and reclaiming wasteland.

Spiritual Impact:
The Gospel is lived out among two unreached people groups through workday devotions and prayer, and weekly discipleship and Bible study.

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Hear one woman's story of transformation & hope through her connection to Highland Harvesters:

​Overcoming Challenges in 2022
With a trained staff and strong leadership in place, HH seeks to overcome some of the environmental and economic setbacks from the past few years. 2020 brought a trio of unexpected challenges to Highland Harvesters including over a year of epic rains and flooding, a locust infestation of biblical proportions, and almost complete loss of local bee population from government spraying of insecticides (to kill locusts).

It is this third challenge, the loss of bees, that HH endeavors to overcome next. Like most fruit trees, apple trees need bees to pollinate and produce fruit. Honey bees, mason bees, and bumblebees are the main pollinators of apples. The smell and color of the flower signals to bees there is tasty nectar waiting inside. When a bee visits a flower, pollen sticks to their hair and is carried to the next flower.

HH plans to expand its learning and opportunity for bee cultivation in this next season and can realize a substantial additional revenue stream from bee, honey and wax production. Ethiopia  is an excellent environment for beekeeping, with a potential of 500,000 tons of honey per year. Having control of its own bee population will ensure pollination of crops and increase annual honey and wax production.

A Sweet Attraction
The stabilization and growth of the bee population will have a compounding effect on the apple harvest.   Much like the mustard seed, the “smallest of all seeds”,  as Jesus calls it when describing the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13: 30-32), the small bees play a large role in magnifying the existing economic, social, environmental, and spiritual impact of Highland Harvesters.

www.highlandharvesters.com