USAID, Dupont expands partnership to aid farmers

— The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and international conglomerate DuPont Company have agreed to broaden their partnership to help smallholder farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America access advanced seed technologies, credit, markets and better storage facilities to limit harvest loss. The expanded five-year partnership was announced January 23 in Davos, Switzerland, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of public, private-sector and academic leaders. It delivers on commitments made through the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. In May 2012, President Obama and other leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) major industrialized nations, African leaders and corporate leaders introduced the global New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition at the G8 summit in Washington. The alliance initially endorsed the plans of Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania to coordinate public and private investments with national agriculture-development priorities. "Investing in smallholder farmers remains the key to unlocking agricultural growth and transforming economies," said USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. "We know that by improving smallholder farmers' access to key tools and technologies, we can help ensure they have the opportunities to participate in increasingly global markets," Shah said. "Better productivity, easier market access and higher incomes lead to less poverty and improved nutrition. This is the vision that drives USAID's leadership of Feed the Future and our ongoing contributions to the New Alliance." Under the agreement, USAID and DuPont said they want to help smallholder farmers improve their production through agricultural innovations. Innovations include helping farmers produce crops with better nutrition and extending the shelf-life of milk, they said. The partners said they want to help more women scientists and youth engage in agriculture, including through the Young African Leaders Initiative. They want to introduce smallholder farmers to climate-resilient crops and innovations like nitrogen-fixing trees to help them sustainably address climate change, and provide them with training in plant protection and soil testing that can improve crop quality and yields. They also want to enable knowledge exchanges on agricultural-development approaches with countries in the Southern Hemisphere, the partners said. Feed the Future is the U.S. contribution to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. Led by USAID, Feed the Future provides support to countries so they can develop their agriculture sectors to generate opportunities for economic growth and trade, particularly for smallholder farmers. The expanded agreement comes a year after USAID and DuPont partnered with the government of Ethiopia to help 30,000 smallholder farmers in Ethiopia produce more maize. DuPont said it would invest more than $3 million in that effort over three years. Maize is an important food source and a significant contributor to the country's economic development, Shah said