Firmenich and Veolia join fund to ‘mutually benefit’ smallholders

From: FoodBev

Flavours company Firmenich and Veolia, which provides resource management solutions to the global food and drink industries, are to join Danone and Mars in a new fund that creates mutual benefits for smallholder farmers, businesses and the environment.

The Livelihoods Fund for Family Farming (Livelihoods 3F) will invest €120m in its first phase to convert 200,000 farms to sustainable farming in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It will provide upfront financing and technical support to non-government organisations (NGOs) and farmers’ cooperatives so that they can implement projects in the field, and is a good example of a programme taking action to address environmental degradation, poverty, and climate change, the companies said.

For Firmenich, the sustainable sourcing of ingredients such as vanilla, patchouli or mint is vital to its business, while Veolia’s involvement in the project will continue its work in enabling the preservation of water resources and soil quality.

Firmenich chief executive officer Gilbert Ghostine said: “Firmenich partners with smallholder farmers around the world to protect the best that nature can offer, while sharing its expertise to positively improve their livelihoods. Investing in the fund gives us the opportunity to scale up the impact of our responsible sourcing, building on the fund’s extensive network of likeminded NGOs and corporate partners.”

Veolia chairman and chief executive officer Antoine Frérot said: “Livelihoods 3F offers Veolia the opportunity to support high impact and empowering projects, sponsored by a community of local and international stakeholders. Veolia will support Livelihoods 3F thanks to its worldwide know-how on water management and natural resources conservation and will have the opportunity to continue to work, through this coalition, on sustainable farming and watershed management challenges.”

And Livelihoods 3F president Bernard Giraud added: “Livelihoods 3F is an open investment fund. All businesses that want to source agricultural and natural goods in a sustainable way are encouraged to join us to increase the breadth of our learning and impact.”

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