Cause-Market Partnership Adds Value to Farmers
We continue to be amazed at the global reach of our cause-market partnership with help. Since we began in 2005, we have supported farmers across India, Africa and Central America with the sales from our fair trade products.
Last year, we helped more than 19,000 farmer families improve their lives by providing them with access to education, healthcare and agriculture services. We are thrilled that this special partnership has made such a positive impact on so many lives.
To learn more about how your purchases make a difference for farmers, check out our new infographic below!
Our partnership with Act for Good to help prevent farmer suicide and improve living conditions for farmers is part of our long standing commitment to improving the lives of smallholder farmers in India. We have been working to help dairy farmers in India since 2003 and since then have supported over 2 million smallholders through our work with Amul, India’s largest dairy brand.
We are delighted that our partnership with Act for Good, which launched in December 2015, will last at least another year. The original target was to support 30,000 farmers but we are now looking to reach a further 20,000 farmers by the end of 2017 – bringing the total number of supported farmers to 50,000.
Through this initiative we are providing financial support and training on best practice farming techniques so that more farmers can follow sustainable farming practices and can generate more income from their farms.
In the last three years we have been able to raise more than $1,000,000 for the relief of small farmers in India by selling our groundnuts. This has helped us achieve our goals.
In this blog I would like to share some of my experiences and how they have shaped our Cause-Market Partnership.
Our first challenge was to find a way to help small farmers in India who were not being paid enough for their crops. We needed to create a system that would bring them out of poverty and into better living conditions.
We decided that if we could make people want to buy our products, then they would be willing to pay a premium price for them. We also knew that if we could show people why they should buy our products, then they would be willing to pay a higher price for them.
So we started by trying to create an emotional connection with people by showing them images of our products on social media. The response was amazing: people wanted to buy what we were selling and were willing to pay a premium price for it. In 2016 we sold over $1 million worth of groundnuts through social media alone!
In the year 2016, we started our cause-market partnership initiative called ‘Act for Good’. We believe that we can change the lives of farmers for good by acting for good. We have already raised over Rs. 1 Crore towards this initiative and have impacted more than a million lives of farmers and their families.
Our CSR team is working closely with local NGOs to identify the most critical problems faced by our farmers and help them get back on their feet by providing them with financial assistance and other support in terms of counselling and training. Our vision is to enable 1 million farmers to live a life of dignity by creating sustainable livelihoods and livelihood opportunities.
We believe that together with our customers and the NGO partners, we can make a difference in the lives of many more people. We will soon start reaching out to you so that you can join us in this movement to do good.
At AMUL, our cause marketing partnership with Smile Foundation aims to provide preventive healthcare and training to farmers in milk co-operative societies of Gujarat. Our partner Smile Foundation has been working towards improving the living conditions of rural communities since 2002. This time they focused on empowering the local communities to prevent farmer suicides and improve their livelihoods.
As a part of this partnership Amul contributed Rs 1 per litre of milk produced by its member farmers, helping Smile Foundation reach out to 8,000 beneficiaries across three regions – Mehsana, Banaskantha and Sabarkantha. The project also helped raise awareness on suicide prevention through community meetings in villages.
Smile Foundation’s approach has been very well received by the target audience who have acknowledged that these trainings have brought about a positive change in their lives. The sessions on stress management were conducted at two levels – one for the youth of the villages and another for their parents.”
Tata Global Beverages, a leading global beverage company with a significant presence in the tea industry, has partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur to help farmers in the tea sourcing region of Dooars in West Bengal. This is a story about our partnership and how it adds value to farmers.
In India, Tata Global Beverages (TGB) sources tea leaves from several estates owned by its subsidiary companies as well as from independent plantations. The Dooars region is one of our key tea sourcing regions. A few years ago, TGB identified some critical challenges faced by farmers in this region and resolved to address these challenges through sustainable solutions. Our goal is to partner with farmers and implement solutions that improve their quality of life.
As a first step towards finding solutions to farmer problems, we engaged with IIT Kharagpur. Our association with IIT KGP began in 2013-14 and the first phase of our project was completed over the next three years. Through this partnership, we hope to drive sustainable solutions for farmers that will add value and make a positive impact on their lives.
The Dooars region is located along the north-eastern edge of West Bengal near the foothills of the Himalayas. Historically, this area
SHOPIFY PARTNERS WITH SAME DROPS TO HELP FARMERS
Shopify is partnering with Same Drops to help farmers, and their families, in rural India. Shopify has donated $150,000 USD to Same Drops to fund the construction of six solar water pumping stations, which will help reduce farmer suicides and improve living conditions for over 6,000 farmers in rural India.
The partnership between Shopify and Same Drops is part of our Pledge 1% program. Through this program, we encourage companies to donate 1% of product, 1% of equity, or 1% of time back to the community. Our Pledge 1% partner, Same Drops, uses technology to help empower farmers and drive social change. They focus on solving fundamental problems such as access to clean drinking water and education for children.
How does it work?
Same Drops has developed a pay-per-use model where each family can use a solar water pump by paying a small fee of Rs 5 (or approximately 0.10 cents) per usage through SMS payments. This model ensures that the maintenance costs are met without any additional burden on the farmers or their families.
We decided to team up with Same Drops because they have a great model that’s not only financially viable but
