Bhubaneswar: Underscoring the importance of smallholder farmers to India’s pandemic recovery, the Walmart Foundation today announced two new grants as part of a commitment made in September 2018 to invest US$25 million (approximately Rs. 180 crores) over five years in improving farmer livelihoods in India.The new funding, which totals $4.5 million, will allow non-profits Tanager and PRADAN to further scale their efforts to help farmers earn more from improvedoutput and fair market access. Both grantees will focus on increasing opportunities for women farmers via farmer producer organizations (FPOs). With these two new grants, the Walmart Foundation has invested a total of $15 million with eight non-government organizations (NGOs) in India, supporting programs designed to impact more than 140,000 farmers, including nearly 80,000 women farmers, to date.
Through its grants, the Walmart Foundation works with well-established NGOs that support FPOsto develop their capabilities and scale to more members. The overall aim is to help FPOs develop knowledge of sustainable farming practices, share business best practices, add value to primary agricultural commodities and improve access to finance and markets.
Kathleen McLaughlin, president of Walmart Foundation and executive vice president and chief sustainability officer of Walmart Inc., said: “We at the Walmart Foundation and our grantee partners are focused on supporting farmers to increase their resilience and sustainability for a better future.” Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart Group chief executive officer and a member of the Walmart Foundation Board of Directors, said: “FPOs are key to the Foundation’s strategy for empowering farmers and bringing them into the digital era.” “With grant funding support from the Walmart Foundation, Tanager will continue to improve access to markets for farmers in Phase 2 of the program, while expanding to include new crops and streams of income and also providing support to farming families during COVID-19.,” Amit Kumar Singh, Tanager team lead, India, said. ” With Project LEAP, we are working together to empower women farmers from remote geographies to set up FPOs and help them leapfrog to the modern economy via robust and fair commodity value-chains.,” Narendranath Damodaran, executive director, PRADAN, said.
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