Stories tagged: mars

Bernard Giraud: How Big Business Can Step Up to the Sustainable Development Goals

In this guest blog post, Bernard Giraud, President of the Livelihoods Venture & Senior Advisor forSustainability and Shared Value Creation at Danone, outlines the ways the private sector can ensure the Sustainable Development Goals are met. This is part of our ongoing series on the state of the Sustainable Development Goal negotiations.

“Our role is not just to sell a bottle of water or a cup of yoghurt. It’s much more than that. We need to look after our ecosystem, and what is more important in our ecosystem than the farmer selling to us milk, fruits, coffee, chocolate and so forth?”

These words come from Frank Riboud, Chairman, Board of Directors at Danone, and sum up the way big businesses are now looking at their supply chains. We know that smallholders make up over 70 per cent of the world’s production of raw materials – that’s the cocoa, sugar and vanilla that businesses buy in huge quantities to make your favorite foods. They depend on these farmers. Yet millions of them remain impoverished, struggling to produce their crops on degraded lands, with limited access to the tools, technology and skills they need to boost their production, protect the environment and secure their own livelihoods. Continue reading

Video: Beyond the Chocolate Bar – How Mars is Helping Smallholder Farmers

Mars purchases around seven million tonnes of agricultural commodities every year. Farming First TV interviewed John Cordaro, Global Business Advisor at Mars, to find out how the company is supporting the smallholder farmers that produce the crops they rely on.

Cordaro commented that in order to maximise development outcomes, businesses sourcing from the developing world need to consider several things. First, they must try and source as much as they can locally. Secondly, businesses should try and link in with other projects happening in the country in question, such as school feeding and healthcare programs. Thirdly, they must work closely with the local communities on sharing knowledge,

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