d4d lab

Kanan Honey

Project

Since 2012, we partnered with FUMEC and Kanan Honey, then a newly formed organization of five established honey cooperatives (60+ beekeepers) in the state of Yucatán, México. This project was led by Cristina Acevedo Hernández at the Mexico-United States Foundation for the Sciences (FUMEC) to bring KANAN’s world-class Mayan honey direct to the Mexican and international markets. Our goal is for the beekeepers to earn fair market value and a living wage for their honey.

KANAN means “to care for”

KANAN’s brand attributes: Maya Heritage and Tradition, Purity, Quality, Artisanal, Environmentally Friendly
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History

D4D has worked with one of the five honey cooperatives since 2006. In May 2012, we met with all five cooperatives to continue the identity building initiated by FUMEC. The name they selected in 2011 — KANAN means “to care for” such as the environment and bees in Yucatec Mayan.
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About the Honey

KANAN HONEY comes from apiaries on indigenous lands in rural Yucatán — renowned for its environmental quality and clean air. Beekeepers learned the beekeeping practice from their parents and grandparents, who learned it from the generations before them. Various developments have helped to create this new organization and now members have access to training in small business development as well as new beekeeping technologies, all the while continuing the Maya tradition of beekeeping.
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Participants

DESIGNERS: Gaby Hernández, Ciara Cordasco, Doug Barrett, Maria Rogal // Cooperativa Lol-Balché: Manuel Magaña Ayil // Fundación México-Estados Unidos para la Ciencia (FUMEC): Ana Lilia Mancilla, Cristina Acevedo, equipo Kanan
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Related Posts

honey labels

Over the summer, we put together a mini-site to get feedback on the project labels. Click here to visit the site. We received some great comments and appreciate the feedback, which we incorporated into revisions. We’ve not yet posted these because of the changes I mentioned...
Date :16 Oct
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honey update

It’s been a while since we’ve updated our blog and a lot of changes have happened. During the summer, the honey project expanded to include three other cooperatives in the state. This is really exciting because the project has the impact to benefit more people. An...
Date :16 Oct
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Some Label Samples

The Citrus group has been working hard at revising the designs for the orange juice labels. Here are some examples of their work:
Date :16 Apr
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About D4D

D4D is a lab for codesigning with people in communities, valuing situated knowledge, and seeking to where and in ways not traditionally available to those who are trained as designers. Founded by Maria Rogal, its purpose now is to foster horizontalidad within design education and practice in order to aid students and designers to expand their knowledge base, skill sets, and mindset to approach our work with respect, reciprocity, and humility, decentering design. Since 2003, Maria’s  design research has incorporated codesign and dialogue in an ongoing effort to address power imbalances, particularly among Indigenous and marginalized communities.

Find us on issuu.com

We have several project documents available on D4D Documents on issuu.com
Copyright Maria Rogal, D4D Lab, and attendant authors 2006–present.