WHAT WE DO
Agricultural Development
OUR GOAL: to reduce hunger and poverty for hundreds of farming families in Asia by increasing agricultural productivity in a sustainable way and bringing greater access to markets.
The Challenge:
Farming in Asia has become a difficult way of living for the people of Asia. The younger generations are no longer interested in maintaining their family farms, and they are instead moving to the cities to seek employment.
The farmers who remain struggle with agricultural productivity as government policies promote excessive fertilizing and other harmful farming practices. Many of the farmers barely get by—struggling with unproductive soil, plant diseases, pests, and drought.
These factors, in turn, put hundreds of families at risk for poverty and hunger as well as malnutrition—the world’s most serious health problem and the single biggest contributor to child mortality. In addition, the use of excessive fertilizer leads to water pollution, underscoring the importance of sustainability to safeguard both environmental and human health.
AT A GLANCE
Most people affected by severe hunger and poverty in Asia are farmers who rely on small plots of land (about one to two acres) for their food and income.
Our goal is to help these farming families produce more food with better quality and increase their income through trading directly and providing access to markets.
The Opportunity:
Helping farming families increase production in a sustainable way, as well as sell more crops by providing access to more markets, is the most effective way to reduce hunger and poverty over the long term.
Cocoa farmers in the South Asian Islands gather to learn sustainable agricultural practices.
When farmers grow more food and earn more income, they are better able to feed their families, send their children to school, provide for their family’s health, and invest in their farms. This makes the community economically stronger and more stable.
We help farmers improve their yields with comprehensive training in employing sustainable agricultural methods to make farming as efficient, affordable, effective, and environmentally-friendly as possible.
Our Strategy:
Our methods must be reproducible and affordable, but also profitable for the farmers. We are committed to the community of farmers where we serve as we provide the following:
- Innovation—We’re using the latest techniques and sustainable agriculture practices integrated with natural ways of farming that have proven successful and environmentally beneficial.
- Community Development—We find sustainable solutions that benefit the people we serve. We’ve dug wells and provided solar powered irrigation systems, using low-cost, locally sourced supplies, that will benefit the people of these communities for years to come.
- Integrity—Our promises are trustworthy and our claims are true regarding our sustainable business practices. Our agricultural products are truly “organic,” and our practices are truly “green.”
- Environmental Protection—We’re committed to protecting and promoting the land and its resources from which we benefit. Highly intensive farming practices have become the norm in Asia, but this is not sustainable. We seek to be innovative and train those around us to implement sustainable, ecological and reproducible agricultural practices that protects the land for years to come.
Our overall goal is to use these strategies to help farming families produce more food with better quality and increase their income through directly trading and providing access to markets. In addition, our sustainable methods help farming communities preserve their land for future generations.
