Farmers and partners to make big impact on key global challenges

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, Mosanto Company chairman and chief executive officer, Hugh Grant, noted the efforts of farmers, food companies, retailers, public-private partnerships and Monsanto do to improve agricultural productivity and natural resource efficiency.  Millions of smallholders and large-scale producers will play a pivotal role in addressing the needs of an additional 2 billion people worldwide over the next few decades, he said.

Mr Grant and Monsanto president and COO Brett Begemann joined more than 2,500 participants from 100 countries taking part in the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2014. Societal leaders, government officials, academics, business leaders and others are engaging in dialogue surrounding the 44^th WEF Annual Meeting’s theme: “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.”

In 2009, a group of WEF partners and constituents, which included Monsanto, outlined a New Vision for Agriculture (NVA) as a critical component to sustainably meet the world’s growing need for safe, nutritious food, using and preserving resources in sustainable way, and driving and helping to nurture local and national economies. Through the NVA initiative, WEF and its partners have set goals for improving food security, environmental sustainability and economic opportunity by 20 percent per decade until 2050.

“New Vision for Agriculture set some very bold and necessary goals that will make a difference for our planet,” said Natalie DiNicola, Ph.D., vice president of sustainability and partnerships at Monsanto. “This work, which can be realised through public-private partnerships combined with our in-the-field work with farmers, is vitally important. At Monsanto, we continue to be committed to working alongside WEF partners and others to do our part so that farmers are at the center of the solution because by continuing to improve agriculture, we will improve lives.”

NVA provides a framework for business-led and market-based solutions explicitly linked to national development priorities. The initiative is led by 33 global WEF partner companies and has engaged more than 250 organizations in its work to strengthen collaboration among stakeholders to help agriculture meet the growing need for food in a sustainable way.

At a global level, NVA has partnered with the G8 and G20, and facilitated high-level informal dialogues. At the regional and country level, NVA has led to multi-stakeholder partnerships in 14 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Together, these efforts have mobilized more than US $5.7 billion in investment commitments and are projected to engage more than 9.5 million farmers duriAdidas