Danone and Mars have announced their collaboration on a sustainable farming project in some of the world’s poorest regions.
The Livelihoods Fund for Family Farming will invest €120m over the next ten years in low-tech, sustainable practices across Africa, South America and Asia. The two business have estimated that the project will help more than 200,000 smallholder farmers to improve “the productivity, incomes and living conditions of small rural farmers in developing countries”.
It will focus on low-tech, sustainable farming techniques, and stems from a moral obligation to protect those that provide the ingredients for the firms’ products, according to one of its chairmen.
Victoria B. Mars said: “Delivering quality products that consumers love, and growth we can be proud of as a company, [is] dependent upon having a sustainable value chain that creates mutual benefit for the farmers that work so hard to produce our agricultural ingredients. Our collaboration with Livelihoods and Danone to kick off this fund is an investment in learning more about what we can do to improve practices and prosperity in small holder farming communities.”
Bernard Giraud, president of the Livelihoods Venture, added: “[The fund] is based on the conviction that sustainable farming, climate change and poverty are closely linked. It is an open investment fund. All businesses that want to source agricultural and natural goods in a sustainable and responsible way are encouraged to join us and increase the breadth of our learning and our impact.”
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