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CARE and Cargill: Partners for 60 Years

Our Leadership Partners
Cargill

For over 60 years, CARE and Cargill have partnered to address food insecurity, malnutrition, and hunger around the globe. Since 2008, we have reached more than 2.7 million people, 480,000 directly and and 2.3 million indirectly, through 25 projects across 11 countries: Brazil, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Mali, and Nicaragua. Our work tackles complex challenges spanning nutrition, women’s economic empowerment, smallholder agriculture, education, and water, sanitation and hygiene. The key has been creating a holistic approach to working with rural agricultural communities as CARE and Cargill aspire to create long lasting, sustainable impact. Our work together in Central America, Africa, and Asia to improve food and nutrition security encompasses four key strategies:

  1. Increasing smallholder farmer productivity: We work with farmers to improve agricultural practices, services and access to inputs so they can increase the quantity and quality of production and improve resilience to climate change. We help farmer groups increase transparency and accountability through more effective leadership and financial systems.
  2. Connecting farmers to markets: We help farmers improve their financial and business skills so they can gain access to markets, improve governance of farmer associations and cooperatives so they can more effectively advocate for farmers, and increase opportunities for value addition so farming communities retain more of the profit from their crops.
  3. Ensuring the food and nutrition security of communities: We support nutrition education, improve food diversity, preserve harvested crops and reduce food waste. We also help engage women micro entrepreneurs in value chains so they can improve food security for their families.
  4. Addressing issues of governance, child labor and education: We support well-governed, thriving communities by strengthening community associations so they are better able to address food security, nutrition and education, including increasing school attendance and reducing child labor.

CARE and Cargill Work Together Across the Globe

Brazil (2008 – 2013)

  • Improved market access and livelihoods for 4,000 smallholder cocoa farmers.
  • Increased income through sale of complementary crops and other activities by $15,200 for 23 farmers in one settlement and by $42,600 farmers in another settlement.

Central America (2008 – current)

  • Reached more than 250,000 people in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Costa Rica through the Nourishing the Future project – including resources for 100,000 farmers and nutrition education for 130,000 children and their families.
  • Engaged Cargill employee volunteers to help build school kitchens and gardens to ensure children have access to safe and nutritious food.
  • Trained more than 1,500 farmers and women entrepreneurs about access to markets, business and financial management.
  • Built awareness of gender inequality and the importance of incorporating gender-sensitive plans into local agendas with more than 5,000 community leaders and group members.

Egypt (2008 – 2013)

  • Trained more than 2,900 farmers to improve soybean yields by 36 percent and increase resilience to climate change.
  • Trained more than 20 cooperative board members about the importance of agriculture.
  • Trained fifty women from farming households who are developing enterprises.

Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (2008 – current)

  • Worked together on the Cargill Cocoa Promise to support nearly 9,000 smallholder cocoa farmers and their families in more than 120 communities.
  • Addressed critical needs such as nutrition, education, child labor awareness and prevention.
  • Established more than 130 Village Savings and Loan Associations to help families, especially women, improve their financial security.
  • Shared insight on food and nutrition security with more than 5,500 community members and engaged more than 200 community health volunteers and nutrition advisors.

India (2008 – 2013)

  • Improved access to education and nutrition information for more than 27,000 children – primarily girls.
  • Reduced childhood malnutrition in more than 300 villages in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
  • Helped 13,000 women farmers increase yields by 23 percent and average profits by 64 percent.
  • Supported 3,500 children with severe acute malnutrition by referring them to nutrition rehabilitation centers.

Indonesia (2016 – current)

  • Improved nutrition for 6,000 elementary students and more than 25,000 community members.
  • Ensured access to sanitation and safe drinking water facilities for 6,000 elementary students and 1,200 parents.

A Decade of Impact in Cocoa Communities: More than Ten Years of CARE-Cargill Partnership

In Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, CARE and Cargill are partnering to support cocoa sustainability, working in cocoa growing communities to build better lives for cocoa farmers and their families. The partnership in West Africa focuses on establishing more prosperous, sustainable, and resilient  cocoa farming communities through a community development approach that engages communities throughout the entire process.

Since 2008, nine programs have been implemented in the region to address critical challenges faced by cocoa farming communities, including cocoa production, harmful child labor practices, women’s economic empowerment, access to financial services, nutrition and education. To date, these cocoa development programs have reached nearly 237,000 people in 323 communities. Of those reached, nearly 112,000 are women.

The partnership is creating change in these communities through the principals and goals established in CARE’s She Feeds the World framework, the Cargill Cocoa Promise commitment, as well as through a participatory development approach that is informed and led by cocoa communities themselves.

Read more about the impact our work together in our 2021 report, A Decade of Impact in Cocoa Communities: More than Then Years of the CARE-Cargill partnership.

When you invest in a woman, you're investing in her whole family. We find that when you invest in a woman, particularly in a low-income country, overall yields and incomes in the community increase.

Michelle Grogg

Vice President, Corporate Responsibility at Cargill

CARE – Cargill Additional Resources

CARE-Cargill Central America 10-Year Partnership Brief

Nourishing the Future 2-Page Impact Brief

Nourishing the Future 7-Page Impact Brief

PROCOCO Ghana 1-Page Impact Brief

PROCOCO Ghana 5-Page Impact Brief

PROCOCO Ghana VSLA Case Study

PROSPER Indonesia Impact Brief

PROSPER Indonesia Project Brief

Supporting Cotton Communities Brief – PROPSER II Cargill – CARE 2021.02.09

Soutien aux communautés cotonnières – PROSPER II Cargill – CARE 2021.02.09

CARE – Cargill Press Releases

CARE and Cargill report highlights a decade of making positive impact in West Africa cocoa growing communities

(February 17, 2021) – Today, CARE and Cargill released a report titled “A Decade of Impact in Cocoa Communities: More than Ten Years of the CARE-Cargill Partnership”

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Cargill and CARE work together to close the gender gap in agriculture

WAYZATA, MN (September 18, 2019) - Cargill and CARE are building on the successes and learnings of their Rural Development Initiative to increase food and nutrition security as well as climate change resilience around the world. Through a new program, She Feeds the World, Cargill and CARE will provide 2 million people with education, resources, and more.

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CARE and Cargill renew partnership to combat food insecurity globally

CARE and Cargill’s partnership of more than fifty years is a testament to the values we share. Over the past eight years, this partnership has helped improve the lives of more than 300,000 people around the world. With Cargill’s support, CARE engages communities to promote food and nutrition security and climate change resilience while advance

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Cargill and CARE renew effort to fight hunger, improve incomes among smallholder farmers

MINNEAPOLIS (Sept. 24, 2013) - Cargill and CARE today announced the renewal of a global partnership that is helping farmers and their families in developing countries increase their productivity and incomes, improve food security in their communities and better educate their children.

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