Sowing the seeds of change
PotashCorp and Free The Children join forces for food security
Adopt a Village, Free The Children’s holistic development model, has always had one goal: to forever lift communities out of poverty. With this in mind, while advancing its development in areas such as education and health care, Free The Children is expanding its agricultural-based initiatives.
“Over the years, we’ve witnessed changing weather patterns and desertification, leading to production issues and higher food prices in many of our communities,” says Free The Children co- founder Craig Kielburger. “Despite interventions, malnutrition and food security persist as challenges.”
This food crisis is far-reaching. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, hunger kills more people each year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
It was at an opportune time, then, that PotashCorp approached Free The Children about a partnership designed to provide sustainable farming practices and food security to subsistence farmers in developing countries.
“As the world grows from seven billion people today to an estimated nine billion by 2050, food security will continue to be a pressing issue,” says Bill Doyle, president and CEO of PotashCorp. Last fall, Free The Children and Saskatchewan- based PotashCorp announced a multiyear partnership that makes PotashCorp the founding partner of Free The Children’s agriculture and food security initiatives. “This partnership will help bring the issue of food security to light and ensure that communities in need have the knowledge, resources and tools to farm optimally.”
Through PotashCorp’s support, Adopt a Village will include agriculture and food security, which joins four other key pillars—education, clean water and sanitation, health, and alternative income and livelihood—in all eight of Free The Children’s active Adopt a Village countries: India, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Ecuador, Kenya, Haiti, Ghana and rural China.
In addition to financial resources, PotashCorp also brings a wealth of knowledge about agriculture and crop nutrition to the table.
“Sharing that knowledge is one of the core values of our company,” says Doyle. “This partnership lets our people dig in and participate in tangible ways.”
Many projects— such as community gardens, school lunch programs, animal husbandry programs and irrigation strategies—that Free The Children will pursue through PotashCorp’s support already had their beginnings in Free The Children’s Adopt a Village model.
Now, an ambitious set of programs will join these initiatives: crop diversification, tree-planting to combat deforestation, farms and gardens development, irrigation and watershed building, and the provision of tools, crop nutrients, resources and training to farmers to improve agriculture productivity.
This partnership, says Doyle, begins at home.
“Our goal is to get young people engaged in the fight for food security. We have a lot of smart young people in this country; students who are capable of creating great change.”