Agriculture

Sustainable Agriculture to Reduce Poverty

Eyes in the Sky: How Drones and Satellites Can Transform African Agriculture

What if every farmer knew exactly what each of her plants needed—the amount of water, the quantity and formula of fertilizer, the type of pesticide—at any given moment? This is the promise of precision agriculture, in which micro-level data is gathered by drones or satellites and used to enhance decision-making on the farm.
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Child Labour in Cocoa: Why It’s So Hard to Combat and What We’re Doing About It

Today, on the UN’s World Day Against Child Labour, Olam take the opportunity to share some of the challenges faced in combating child labour in cocoa and where they, as the world’s leading exporter of cocoa from Africa, are focusing their efforts to eradicate child labour in their supply chain.
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Bringing Business Back Home: Biomass Energy of Sri Lanka

Biomass Supplies, a Sri Lankan subsidiary of Biomass Group – the visionary renewable energy company – is developing Sri Lanka’s abundant sustainable energy resources through innovative partnerships with the country’s smallholder farmers.
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Meet the Longlist: Unilever Global Development Award, Supported by Business Fights Poverty

Business in the Community announce the longlist of companies selected for the The Unilever Global Development Award, supported by Business Fights Poverty. The award recognises businesses that demonstrate positive impact against one or more of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Charting a Course for Robust Private Sector Engagement

MCC share the highlights from their recent Advisory Council meeting in Washington, D.C. The gathering brought together Council members with deep subject area expertise, representing a variety of U.S. industries, to provide specific feedback on agency plans, as well as advice on how MCC can improve its engagement with the business community.
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Engaging the Private Sector for Development Results in Indonesia

Nilmini Rubin, Vice President for International Development at Tetra Tech in Jakarta, Indonesia, shares how MCC-funded projects are engaging the private sector in cocoa production and other industries to achieve better development results.
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Are Standards an Effective Tool to Help Improve Production Practices Across Sectors?

Kristin Komives, ISEAL’s Impacts Director, explores how sustainability standards drive the take up of sustainable practices, following the publication of a new research review.
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5 Ways Local Markets Help Refugees Rebuild Their Lives

In the westernmost corner of Uganda, something interesting is happening. This rural area of Uganda is challenging perceptions of how refugees can contribute to the local economy. West Nile in Uganda is home to hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees, and together with their Ugandan host communities, they are beginning to drive growth.
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Women Sea Salt Producers in Indonesia Cooperate to Seize New Economic Opportunities

MCC’s investments in Indonesia are helping to empower women salt producers to increase the quantity and quality of salt production to boost incomes. The women are benefiting from labor-reducing and energy-efficient technologies as well as training programs aimed at improving salt-making skills, financial management, marketing and more.
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How Can Business Help Strengthen Provision of High Quality, Low Cost Education for the Poor?

What can be done to help improve the contribution of low-cost private schools to the education of children from low-income families? And what are the conditions needed for low cost private schools to equitably and sustainably deliver better outcomes for poor communities in ways that will further strengthen national education systems as a whole?
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A Nigérien Entrepreneur Finds Her Niche in Camel Milk

MCC’s $437 million five-year compact to strengthen agriculture sector entered into force in January. The compact will focus on improving access to water for agriculture and livestock and expanding access to markets. In this blog post, we profile Wouro Habsatou Aboubacar, who runs a camel farm outside of Niamey.
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Supporting Entrepreneurs in the Pursuit of Peace

Bpeace is a nonprofit that matches business experts with entrepreneurs in challenged economies, to help them grow their businesses and generate jobs. In this story Bpeace share some successful examples of connecting experts with growing businesses and how they believe that more jobs means more peace.
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SDGs: What Part Do Forests Play?

Not only do forests provide a wide array of ecosystem services, such as absorbing greenhouse gases and regulating water quality, there are also over a billion people who depend on forests for their livelihoods. It is clear our forest ecosystems offer irreplaceable resources we can’t live without.
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The Agricultural Models We Want Tomorrow

Food loss in the supply chain, the shift to a less-nutritious fast-food diet and wasteful irrigation techniques are among the most important challenges currently facing the food and agriculture system in the MENA region. Read how BCtA companies are serving as positive examples for inclusive businesses in the region.
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Meet the Winner: The Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security

At the International Forum for Food and Nutrition, four scientists were recognised for their work in finding global solutions to food security issues. Meet the winner of the Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security, Dr Filippo Bassi, whose research could transform the lives of over 1 million smallholder farmers.
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Meet the Winners: The Louis Malassis Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food Security

Scientists hold some of the answers to so many of today’s agricultural challenges at their fingertips. Support for this community is a vital if we are to deliver the SDGs. The Louis Malassis Prize has been established to recognise some of the brightest scientific minds. Meet the 2017 Prize winners.
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A Paradigm Shift

Reflecting on the past six decades of top-down approaches to poverty, limited by a fixation on aggregate wealth, Fundación Paraguay argue that the “Poverty Stoplight” programme offers a decidedly different strategy. Allowing families to self-diagnose their level of poverty and develop personalized strategies to overcome poverty permanently.
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How Can We Create an Enabling Environment for Inclusive Business?

While Inclusive Business literature includes many recommendations on how we can create an enabling environment for Inclusive Business, actual experience or evidence is still relatively limited. This DCED report, summarises more than 100 documents with empirical experiences and emerging evidence from different communities, to explore key lessons learnt.
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COP23: Deforestation and Gender Responsive Solutions for Agriculture and Food Security

Summary: As COP23 kicks off in Bonn we speak with Kennedy Ntoso at Olam to gain insight into what actions the private sector can take to support gender mainstreaming in agriculture. Kennedy discusses his involvement with the Gender Sub Working Group of Ghana’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programme.
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How Some Health NGOs Can Be Bolder in Their Engagement with Business

I was recently invited to present TPI’s partnering toolkit on NCDs – developed last year in collaboration with Bupa and UICC – at EPHA’s annual conference. The memorable phrase ‘evil puppeteers’ was used in one presentation, in reference to the nefarious and shady activities of corporate lobbyists.
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What do we mean by "Agriculture"?

Discover how sustainable agriculture techniques can reduce poverty by promoting environmental health and increasing food security.

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