Walmart Foundation is an organization that supports initiatives made for the betterment of society and communities. It has recently stated that the organization will support 1 million smallholder Indian farmers by granting a sum of $3.53 million which includes at least 50% women. This initiative has been taken to improve the agricultural inputs and build the farmer’s independent. It will be done in the next 5 years. Two grants have already been made public by the foundation, including $3 million to the international nonprofit organization named TechnoServe for its efforts shown. They have reached out to 30,000 farmers and 24 Farmer Production Organisations (FPOs) both in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Around 50% of workers in this organization are women.
The NGO Trickle Up has reached out to approximately 1,000 women smallholder farmers belonging to Odisha connecting with two FPOs. For this gesture, they will also receive an amount of $533,876 from the Foundation.
Kathleen McLaughlin, President of Walmart Foundation addressed a conference in Delhi where she mentioned the aim and commitments done by the foundation. Their objective is to improve agricultural inputs and provide smallholder Indian farmers with market access, new customers, and technological advancement so that the farmers can become independent.
Kathleen also served as an executive vice president and chief sustainability officer of Walmart Inc. She also stated that this foundation has already reached out to 8 lakh smallholder farmers of Jharkhand, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Karnataka. They spent over $39 million in the first phase.
Rajneesh Kumar, Senior Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Flipkart also presented his viewpoints on this event. He mentioned the collaboration of Flipkart with the Walmart Foundation which is named Flipkart Krishi Samarth. They are creating a holistic ecosystem that will help farmers with the immense opportunities that the digital economy presents. He further added, this initiative will also improve the growth of women farmers.
