We had the great pleasure of meeting Matt Hales from Farmer’s of Gold (FOG) in May of 2018. Matt runs a non-profit focused on providing safety gear for ASGM miners in Lolgorian, Kenya. His efforts familiarized him with their use of mercury, and the associated health risks became the concern that led him to contact us. We discussed improved mining practices, and after a consultation, we fabricated a Popandson sluice and mercury retort which he delivered on his next visit to Lolgorian.
As luck would have it, our paths crossed while in Kenya, and Matt invited us to join him and see first-hand the work he’s involved in.
We spent several days with him in Lolgorian, where we toured FOG’s office and met with the local mining community. It was an added bonus that we were able to demonstrate the use of the sluice and retort to some of the lead miners in the community. Nothing beats immersion when trying to understand an issue, and being there with the miners as they worked was both enlightening and motivating.
About The Farmers of Gold Project
Date Founded: The Farmers of Gold Project was founded in January 2018 by Matthew Hales and Don Moriarty as a subsidiary project of The Cora Blue Fund charity which was established on 05/20/2016
Founder(s): Abigail Preston, Matthew Hales, Janyne Preston, Don Moriarty
Sponsor(s): Private donations
Mission: The Farmers of Gold Project mission is to improve the safety of impoverished artisanal gold miners in Kenya & around the world by providing access to safety gear & training.
Achievements:
- Created a working partnership between our private NGO Farmers of Gold, the UNDP and the Kenyan Ministry of Mining.
- Opened a main office for the gold miners chairman, on-site in Lolgorien, Kenya which includes a safety equipment store for purchases and rental of safety gear
- Acquired a legal operating license for miners of Lolgorien organized under the Farmers of Gold Project
- Supplied almost all 500+ local Artisan Gold miners with at least some of the basic equipment required including dust masks, helmets, ear plugs, gloves, and gumboots, since January.
Future Goals:
- Create a safety training video course with several videos including safety gear, safety techniques, safety hazards in artisanal gold mining practices, the use of mercury, silica from dust, hearing protection, and safe mine construction.
- Create a short and comprehensive safety quiz pertaining to the training videos. Issue a certificate of completion upon passing the safety quiz. This certificate would also allow subsidized purchases of safety gear that will be made available thru the Farmers of Gold project.
- Organize these small independent gold miners to become more self-aware and stringent in the use of safety gear and use of toxic materials.
- Help provide the safety program and gear mandated in order to maintain mining legally.
- Help remove mercury all together from the process, by investing in mercury-free extraction equipment manufactured by MBMM Corporation.
- Implement cleanup of the environmental programs.
Note from Matt Hales: We are very grateful to be working with you all! MBMM is helping pave the road to safer mining practices to the most impoverished miners in the most needed areas. To think of a manufacturing company caring about the most negatively affected and poorest miners is truly remarkable!
Partnerships are an incredible way to magnify the positive impact of any effort. If you have an interest in partnering with Matt’s cause, please contact him or find out more on the Farmers of Gold Website.
The latest updates with FOG are also available on their Facebook page:
Latest Donation Highlight Video Clip: Gumboots and gloves delivered to 100 Kenyan women miners