New Delhi, Sept 17, 2020: Walmart which entered Indian e-commerce market with acquisition of Flipkart 2 year back, has announced new grants of more than Rs 30 Crore to be utilised by its NGO partners Tanager and PRADAN towards various livelihood programmes in rural India, especially focussed on smallholder farmers.
The grant is part of Walmart 2018 commitment to invest around Rs. 180 crores over five years in improving farmer livelihoods in India.With the new round of grants, Walmart has invested about Rs 110 Crore for such programmes through its Philanthropic arm Walmart Foundation. The Foundation has been working 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.
The Walmart Foundation underscored the importance of smallholder farmers to India’s pandemic recovery. Kathleen McLaughlin, president of Walmart Foundation and executive vice president and chief sustainability officer of Walmart Inc., said, "The global COVID-19 pandemic has increased pressure on India’s farmers, especially women farmers shouldering extra responsibilities in the household while seeing their incomes diminish overnight."
The new fund will be utilised by its NGO partners to further scale their efforts to help farmers earn more from improved output and fair market access. They will also focus on increasing opportunities for women farmers via farmer producer organizations (FPOs).
On the grant announcement, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart Group chief executive officer who is also a member of the Walmart Foundation Board of Directors, said that the is huge potential for innovative technology solutions to help farmers in India. He added that FPOs are key to the Foundation’s strategy for empowering farmers and bringing them into the digital era as it will help "improve productivity and yield, increase access to valuable market information and succeed in building a more efficient and transparent supply chain.
How the grant helps livelihood?
Through its grants, the Walmart Foundation works with well-established NGOs that support FPOs to 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.
NGOs and their FPO partners proved critical during India’s COVID-19 lockdown and are a key part of the nation’s ongoing recovery. With the support of the Walmart Foundation, they were able to mobilize to meet urgent needs for food and hygiene supplies, organize safe sales channels, support harvesting operations, and continue with training programs and initiatives promoting farming diversity and climate-smart production practices by moving them to digital platforms.
New Grants to Support Women Farmers
In the latest round of Walmart Foundation grants, international nonprofit organization Tanager will receive about Rs 20 Cr to extend its successful Farmer Market Readiness Program and help farmers in Andhra Pradesh further expand their knowledge, resources and reach.
Phase Two of the program will focus on strengthening the sustainability of 13 FPOs, seven of which are new to the program, in order to help more than 15,000 farmers, including more than 5,600 women farmers, increase their productivity and profitability.
Delhi-based non-profit Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) will use its Walmart Foundation grant of around Rs 14 Cr to launch its Livelihood Enhancement through Market Access and Women Empowerment (LEAP) program in West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand in eastern India. LEAP will focus on supporting women to work together in FPOs to adopt new farming practices, diversify and intensify their output, and embark on profitable farming-related businesses.
With a focus on supporting women farmers from tribal populations and vulnerable groups, PRADAN’s Walmart Foundation-funded LEAP program is expected to reach out to 45,000 women farmers directly benefiting a population of about 225,000 people.
"The Walmart Foundation and PRADAN share a vision of building sustainable communities by creating opportunities for marginalised people. 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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