How can farming sustain better jobs and just-in-time nutritious products

This big question is being addressed by many Grameen Global Social Business Partnerships in addition to Whole Planet of Whole Foods

these include:

Grameen Intel e-agro

Better expertise for farmers in offing

Sep 23 2011

BHUBANESWAR: The farmers of the State will now have better technological expertise to increase crop output with the launch of e-Agro business initiative.

E-Agro is a joint venture of Intel and Grameen Intel Social Business (Bangladesh). This is a model programme where an entrepreneur will be given charge of 2,000 farmers. He will be responsible for keeping database of production of last five years and provide the farmers know-how for better harvest. The database will be made in the local language so that the farmer will be able to access it. Gradually, the number of farmers assigned to each entrepreneur will be increased depending on his capacity. The entrepreneur will be backed by OUAT, Paradeep Phosphates and Intel.

"We are trying to find ways to bring technology to people. We had technology but did not have the knowledge about entrepreneurial needs. And Grameen helped us providing a complete solution," said Frank Martinez, director of Intel's World Ahead Programme.

The e-Agro initiative has been launched in 12 locations of the State as a pilot project.

"We are working on this for the last two and a half years and it is a learning process. Now is the time to scale up and expand," said K C Mishra, CEO, eKutir. De-risking is a crucial part of the programme where farmers are provided with best quality seeds, fertilisers and an advisory to minimise the chances of crop failure.

Jobs are being created at the macro level and the farmers are getting quality services for a fixed payment, said Frank.

"The e-Agro initiative is a big boon for us as it will help us gain know-how on how to grow crops better," said Charana Sasmal, a beneficiary of the programme.

Source: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/better-expertise-for-farmers-in-offing/186532-60-117.html

Nutrition for Infants - around 1983 grameen's first non-financial product was carrott seeds so villagers could end night blindness of infants- which was also a warning signal that infants werent getting enough nutrition for their brain and body to grow normally. Since yunus entrepreneurial revolution 3 : paris and yunus partnered in global social business ventires in 2005 grameen danone has led the way forward for super infant-nutrition: through village yogurts in bangladesh to fortified cereal bars in china. See www.danonecommunities.com both to celebrate news of every French collaboration witg yunus and to see the worlds leading social business fund with its focus on milk, water and cereal products

.................................................. Paris is the epicentre of much wider reformations on farming than danone's global branding responsibility in milk, water and cereal production can reach; Sarkozi hosted the B20 network on cannes nov 2011 on food secruity and livelihood issues - next meeting paris december; in parallel Grameen Credit Agricole has a 50 million euro fund directed at developing world's micro-agricultures, with the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg on the board; one significance of this is that Luxembourg is the investment funds capital of the EU as explained in the EU microcreditsummit of 4 December. The question is with Sir Ronald Cohen transforming clasical funds networks out of UK with his social impact bonds set to leverage many billions of charitable assets that have previously been used passively,

will Luxembourg get how social the next bounce of the ball needs to get if the 2010s is to be youths most productive decade.

Interestingly Eastern Europe's main application of microcredits remains agrucultural renewal.

WHOLE EUROPE SOCIAL BUSINESS TRAIN There is a clear and urgent need thru net generation of 2010s for social action networks to interface what currently is best practiced or most powerfull resourced out of London-Paris-Brussels-Luxembourg-Europe east (rsvp chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk if you have another future capital to train in)

Crop Science researched from the community up has become a sustainable lifeline aacross all the networks influenced by tehse empowerment centres www.brac.net nippon research, newest head of usad is passionate about crop science

Value chain analysis the method we like best of the ways USAID and World bank analyses whether a market chain is inclusive of the poorest and encouraging the moist sustainable imoacts in the community that they are most productive at leading - see for example how mapping milk markets is having tarsnformational impacts; moreover micro innovatiosn are now empowering on the ground quality certifications that were previously impossible to monitor either tecchnically or without the monitoring cost be horrific

Energy , and waste disposal; agriculture and water all interconnect with each oher when you are mapping sustainble community aproaches- one extraordianry source of links into this is the microgreen oscars at http://www.ashdenawards.org - judging of this process is backed by the UK's leading philanthroists, royal family members, and BBC nature correpondents - all good news for a subject that needs to be heroised even more than whomever puts up the most exciting instanteous memory at the London Olympics

Many youth1000 braninstorms include 20% or more job creation projects that involve rural integration. Does this surprise you that this should be tru of a method that was invensted in the USA? Well the first run was across the state of Georgia which landwise is 90+% agricultral. There are a heck of a lot of small agrucultural communities without fair trade market channels which need newtorking together as cooperative s and which need to be assisted by te state's agricultural coleges so they work out which produce they can be best at serving. Although USA is famous for what its big cities advertsise around te world, its integratiuon with agriuculture if the nation is to be sustainable is as crucial as any contient its size. So worldwide youth of 2010s have far more in common in sharing solutions to making local famers sustanable than they have any need to be protectionist within borders. The problem isn't with youth but all the lousy models that big mba professors teach. These models are lousy when they spin lose-lose-lose and are lousy when professors are to grandiose to get out into the fields and see how contextual andopenly interfacing rural economics- and natures dynamic laws of evolutionary survival - can get. Gunter pauli is one of thse who is joyfully ready to stand up and be counted - at least 100 million worldwide jobs can be created sustainably if we get down to a worms eye view of nature's blue-green economy