Author Archives: Pierre Ferrari

About Pierre Ferrari

Pierre Ferrari is president and CEO of Heifer International. Pierre is very passionate about empowering the families and communities with whom Heifer works: “It took me decades, but I have come to know that the only way to happiness and joy is to be of service to others.” Pierre’s other joys are his wife, Kim, his two sons and two stepdaughters. In his free time he enjoys golf, squash, reading and travel.

Community Development Required to Strengthen Small Farmers

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Yesterday I shared with you some thoughts about how smallholder farmers must be strengthened so they can help feed the world’s growing population. Today, I want to share with you the importance of community development.

Economic growth for its own sake is not a solution. For economic growth to make sense and to make lasting change, there has to be community development—it must contribute to a better life for the least of us just as much as it improves life for those of us with the most.

For Heifer, community development comes through training in our Cornerstones for Just and Sustainable Development. These values, such as gender equity, full participation, sharing and caring, accountability and training and education, are the backbone of our work.

Community Development through Heifer's Cornerstones

Community Development through Heifer's Cornerstones. Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Embedded into a family’s life and culture, these values create significant social change. Women gain their voice and become leaders in their communities. Husbands learn respect and help their wives. Co-ops form, savings accounts are created and, in time, entire communities, entire countries change.

Community development is the foundation for market development, and building social capital and ensuring gender equity is the highest form of pro-poor development.

Without community development, market development doesn’t last. Market development typically works against the poor, so Heifer International provides the structure and tools families need to compete fairly. These include resources such as animals and training to help them achieve resilience, but we also provide them access to others in the value chain that add value and provide access to cash. These are critical needs, not nice to haves for these smallholder farm families.

We call this Heifer’s Healthy Hoofprint—and it creates material change such as increases in income and nutrition; attitudinal change in values and social norms, where farmers who once isolated themselves now collaborate and cooperate; and external change, including changes in laws and policies by governments and other NGOs.

But it’s got to be about more than income, it’s also about what that income means to them, how it helps improve their lives beyond basic needs. It’s about more than helping them grow more food. It’s about helping them grow better food—more nutritious, more diverse, providing a year-around diet that supports three protein-laden meals every day of every month. There can be no more lean months.

Community development creates individual and collective prosperity.

Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

It’s about helping them help cool and improve the planet, using more organic fertilizers like manure from their animals, implementing good sanitary practices—using latrines and protecting water supplies. It’s about empowering women to their proper place and role—equal partners in progress and profits, and as leaders. We must ensure they have a say in their education, contribute to decisions in the household, have mobility and unfettered access to services and markets—equality in all they do and seek.

There must be other intangibles—key pieces of community development—as well. There is strength in numbers, so we must help them behave collectively, for the good of the community as well as the good of the family. There must be social inclusion and trust, especially trust. We see that in our projects that continue to heal the wounds of war and conflict in Rwanda, Kosovo and Cambodia.

We, and others who support us, believe our attention to community development, alongside asset development, contributes to our success. As families use our livestock to increase food production and diversity, the Cornerstones foster change that spans generations. In some communities, we are seeing families celebrate 13 generations of Passing on the Gift.

Sheep as agents of community development.

Sheep as agents of community development. Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Imagine that. One sheep became two, then four, then eight. After 13 generations, that is 4,096 sheep and 4,096 additional families benefitting from the original sheep and training. That’s impact!

Come back tomorrow to the Heifer Blog to learn about how measuring our impact is key to demonstrating the changes created by our work.

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Smallholder Farmers Will Feed The World

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Earlier today I presented a keynote speech at the World Food Prize 2012 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa. I’d like to share with you some of what I had to say about smallholder farmers and the important role they must play in feeding the world. 

Today, our fragile and beautiful Earth is home to seven billion people. Over the next 30 years, two, maybe three billion more will join us. The global food system is struggling. Food prices peaked in 2008 and peaked again a few months ago, sparking riots and export bans. Land grabs, increasing oil prices, biofuel development, food production and distribution failures, disturbing water shortages are converging and reshaping our world and the very character of poverty and hunger.

All these forces are contributing to the distressing spike in malnutrition and poverty around the world.

The world needs smallholder farmers

Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

But to the good, the G8, G2O, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum and others have rediscovered the critical importance of agriculture and are all promising—through public-private partnerships—to do more for smallholder farmers. We laud these decisions—smallholder farmers are the best change agents we have to help feed this hungry world. Let me explain.

Heifer International is helping lead what has been called the livestock revolution. We are working to reach a rapidly growing group of smallholder farmers, mostly women, to inspire agroecological productivity, biodiversity, financial security and health to create the surplus needed to feed the world.

There are 650 million smallholder farmers in the world and 50 to 80 percent of them are women! They grow the majority of the food eaten every day. By doubling their productivity, they can help feed the world. And we will need these 300+ million women to feed us all.

Smallholder farmers in Zambia

Smallholder farmers will feed the world, but only if we help. Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Along with this, we need to take advantage of new plant technologies, and spread as rapidly as possible best practices, which can double or triple yields. We also need more and better public-private partnerships to advance agriculture to help meet global needs in food security. They can open access to finance and technology and link smallholders to markets. By combining strengths, partners can all make better progress than by working on their own.

By using the greatest asset in agricultural development—the smallholder farmer—along with the best seeds, the best plants, judicious use of a range of fertilizers and wise husbandry, we can increase yields by factors of three or four. Also, rethinking subsidies for biofuel could free up vast acreage for human food production, which we know we need.

Overcoming these challenges will require new thinking, new collaborations, new openness … understanding that all successful agricultural public-private partnerships should lead to win-win situations that benefit farmers. Recent studies suggest that improvements in national incomes tied to agricultural growth have been underestimated. In truth, few countries have achieved increased prosperity without equivalent growth in agriculture.

So, what does that mean? It means that successful poverty elimination utilizes market-driven development and depends strongly on deeply embedded social engagement.

But let’s be clear on one thing—something we learned at Heifer International a long time ago: Economic growth and community development cannot be separated. They must go hand in hand.

Come back to the Heifer Blog tomorrow to learn more about how economic and community development must be done together.

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Heifer CEO Speaks at World Food Prize 2012

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This week I am honored to be a part of the World Food Prize 2012 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, to represent the work of Heifer International and to help give voice to the millions of smallholder farmers who struggle daily against enormous odds to feed themselves and their families.

The World Food Prize is an incredible event, founded by Dr. Norman E. Borlaug in 1986, that honors outstanding individuals from all over the world who have made substantial contributions in the fight against hunger.

World Food Prize 2010

World Food Prize 2010 co-recipients, Jo Luck and David Beckmann. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

It was only two years ago that Heifer’s then-president, Jo Luck, and Bread for the World President David Beckmann accepted the World Food Prize. It was a milestone—the first time the prize recognized the critical achievements that non-governmental organizations, such as Heifer International and Bread for the World, are making empowering everyday people everywhere to help end hunger.

I am humbled to be standing in their shadow and honored to be carrying on Jo Luck’s legacy. Since that October day in 2010, Heifer has helped another four million families move beyond subsistence to resilience, bringing our total to more than 18 million families assisted.

World Food Prize

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

We cannot end hunger and poverty on our own. The direction that Heifer is embarking on will move us closer to achieving our mission of ending hunger and poverty and caring for the Earth. We are building on our past success to help more families than ever before by increasing our scale of impact. And our persistent efforts have not gone unnoticed. We have caught the attention of many large and impactful organizations such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Bank and United States Agency for International Development. I met with these organizations when I traveled to India, Nepal and Cambodia. They have seen the socioeconomic advancements in our project communities, generated by our work, and  they are interested in integrating with our efforts to empower families.

World Food Prize

Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

Speaking at the World Food Prize, surrounded by the luminaries of the development world, means that Heifer is being recognized as a key player. These next few years will be exciting and full of promise. But don’t just be an observer, get involved. Everyone has a role to play in ending hunger and poverty and your involvement in your own community can help the families all over the world with whom we work.

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World Food Day 2012: Heifer International’s Cooperatives Will Help Feed the World

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Our fragile and beautiful Earth is home to seven billion people. Right now, the global food system is struggling, one in eight people goes to sleep hungry, and according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which declares October 16 World Food Day, “food prices still remain generally higher than last year and very volatile.”

So now what? Do we wring our hands and hope someone else will provide the solution?

Absolutely not! We take action and become a part of the answer to ending hunger and poverty.

World Food Day: Jibu Guoguo, collects cabbage from her garden.

Heifer project participant, Jibu Guoguo, collects cabbage at her garden near her home in Gudu village in China. Photograph by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Today Heifer International joins the FAO and others in observance of World Food Day. This year, the theme “Agricultural Cooperatives – key to feeding the world” highlights the efforts of smallholder farmers who have united to end hunger.

But it isn’t just today that Heifer supports the world’s farmers, cooperatives and rural organizations – it is every day. We have always understood the critical importance of agriculture, and we have recognized that smallholder farmers are the best tools we have to help feed this hungry world.

There are 650 million smallholder farmers in the world, and according to the ETC Group, they produce 70% of the food eaten every day. By simply doubling their productivity, they can feed the world’s vastly growing population.

So how do we support the efforts of the smallholder farmers to improve their own lives, advance their communities and begin to feed to the world?

Earlier this year, on the United Nations International Day of Cooperatives, we highlighted Heifer’s work with cooperatives in Peru, Africa, Nepal and the Ukraine.  Heifer is continually working to reach a rapidly growing group of smallholder farmers – mostly women – to inspire agroecological productivity, biodiversity, financial security and health to create the surplus needed to feed the world.

You also have a key role to play in feeding the world. Spread the message to family and friends, and join us in observance of World Food Day. But remember: hunger does not end when the day does. You can continue to play a role by getting involved in Heifer’s work.

Read more of Heifer’s coverage of World Food Day 2012 here.

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Sustainability at Heifer International: Part 3

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At Heifer International, “sustainability” is much more than a buzzword. It’s at the core of everything we do. If our work didn’t improve the environment, we wouldn’t be caring for the Earth, would we? As I mentioned in my blog post Thursday, Heifer’s work can be viewed through three lenses of sustainability. This post is the third in a three-part series to examine what genuine sustainability looks like at Heifer International. Read Part 1 here. Read Part 2 here.

Sustainability: Using natural resources to meet the needs of the current generation without depleting or compromising resources for future generations

Sustainability needed in Cameroon

Unplanted earth, like this garden in Cameroon, is vulnerable to soil erosion. Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

By 2050, the Earth’s population is expected to reach 9 billion. If the percentage of hungry people remains at the current 13.1 percent, there will be 1.2 billion hungry people in 2050. Of course here at Heifer International, we’re not planning on letting that forecast become a reality. But the fact that there will be 9 billion people on the planet in 38 years is daunting to say the least. At 7 billion strong, we can already see the strain we humans put on the environment in many ways.

A common symptom – and cause – of global poverty is poor agriculture practices. Soil erosion and deforestation are but two examples. Climate changes, including drought and severe weather shifts already hurt the world’s most poor and vulnerable.

If we are to help millions of families feed themselves and the growing world population, we have to do everything with environmental sustainability in mind. Organic farming methods, zero-grazing pens, biogas units and water cisterns are all examples of how we achieve the “Caring for the Earth” part of our mission in every project we do, no matter the size.

Sustainability in Peru

Sustainability in Peru: Dolores Delgado's organic farm. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

Dolores Delgado’s farm in Peru is a great example of how our project participants are improving their own lives while also improving their environment. Right from the start of her involvement in the project, Dolores began turning guinea pig waste into organic fertilizer for her vegetable and fodder crops. Her farm was an oasis in a tough part of the world.

At our headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas, we do our best to “walk the sustainability talk.” Our building has a Platinum LEED rating, we have installed solar panels to help meet our energy needs, we have a giant water cistern to harvest rain.

Learn more about how Heifer International works to achieve environmental sustainability.

Tell me in the comments section below: What does genuine sustainability look like to you? What improvements do you think we could all make to help make our work have more lasting impact, our donations go farther, and our planet Earth last longer?

Do you want to help impoverished farmers in Peru learn new ways to thrive in the face of climate change? Give to our project now.

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Sustainability at Heifer International: Part 2

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At Heifer International, “sustainability” is much more than a buzzword. It’s at the core of everything we do. If your donation isn’t going to make a lasting difference, what’s the point of giving? As I mentioned in my blog post Thursday, Heifer’s work can be viewed through three lenses of sustainability. This post is the second in a three-part series to examine what genuine sustainability looks like at Heifer International. Read Part 1 here.

Sustainability: The capacity to endure

Heifer’s work is made possible through the contributions of individuals, families, congregations, civic groups, schools, private foundations, corporate partners, government entities and others. What a shame it would be if these generous gifts, once given, became obsolete. The beauty of our model, however, is that the original recipients of a project’s livestock, agricultural resources and training are committed to Passing on the Gift in equal quantity and quality.

Sustainability through Passing on the Gift in China

Sustainability through Passing on the Gift in China. Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

Watch Alton Brown explain how gifts to Heifer International exemplify sustainability through Passing on the Gift:

This process happens a minimum of one time per project. Would you believe that the average project’s gifts are passed on for five or six (livestock) generations? In Nepal, some projects have Passed on the Gift 13 times. These extra pass-ons aren’t at the requirement of our project staff; they happen because families and communities are so transformed by these gifts, they want to keep paying it forward. Now that’s making a donation last.

Check back on the Heifer Blog tomorrow for Part 3 of this Sustainability at Heifer series. Better yet, subscribe to the blog by email or RSS feed and keep up with Heifer every day.

Want to give the gift of genuine sustainability? Visit our online gift catalog now.

Read more Passing on the Gift stories here.

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Sustainability at Heifer International: Part 1

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At Heifer International, “sustainability” is much more than a buzzword. It’s at the core of everything we do. If you’re not setting out to do work that lasts, why bother at all? As I mentioned in my blog post yesterday, Heifer’s work can be viewed through three lenses of sustainability. This post is the first in a three-part series to examine what genuine sustainability looks like at Heifer International.

Sustainability: Able to be maintained at a certain level

One of the defining factors of our work is that, when our projects are over, and direct involvement with participating families is finished, the improvements they have made in their own lives through our gifts of livestock and training are maintainable. Small farming families have the physical resources, knowledge and motivation to not only stay at their current level of improved livelihoods, but also to continue making improvements.

Sustainability in Tanzania: Kitomary Family

The Kitomarys on their 1.5 acre organic farm, nine years after receiving assistance from Heifer. Photo by Kelly MacNeil, courtesy of Heifer International.

This form of sustainability is so important, and it’s how we know our efforts truly work. Take  for example the Kitomary family of Tanzania, about whom Kelly MacNeil wrote on the Heifer Blog. They received their gifts of animals and training nine years ago, and they continue thriving on their one-and-a-half-acre farm after all these years. They are educating all six of their children, which would not be possible had they not continued applying what they learned in the Heifer trainings to make the most out of their very small plot of land. The Kitomarys are the living definition of sustainability.

Check back on the Heifer Blog tomorrow for Part 2 of this Sustainability at Heifer series. Better yet, subscribe to the blog by email or RSS feed and keep up with Heifer every day.

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Sustainability Summit Connects Atlanta to Heifer’s Work

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This weekend in Atlanta, Heifer and Oglethorpe University will host our first “Sustainability Summit.” I am excited to take part in this event, which I know will be a meaningful and impactful program, connecting Heifer’s important work with donors, volunteers, students and others in the Atlanta community.

I will be speaking about our efforts to scale up our work and how this will help us achieve our mission of ending hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth. Other speakers will include Betty Londergan, Heifer 12×12 blogger and Oglethorpe First Lady; Keo Keang, Heifer Cambodia Country Director, and Jeffrey Scott, Heifer USA’s Director of Social Enterprise Development.

Sustainability Summit: Sok Pheary Feeds Her Pigs

Sok Pheary of Cambodia, gives her pigs fodder from her field. Photo by Russell Powell, courtesy of Heifer International.

I look forward to sharing with the Atlanta community Heifer’s incredible story and showing how our work can increase in reach and impact yet remain true to our roots in sustainability.

I know “sustainability” may seem like an overused term, to the point that it’s becoming watered down. But at Heifer International, it’s always been at the core of our mission and work. In fact, our work can be viewed as sustainable from three different but integrated lenses:

  1. Improvements in participants’ lives are maintained after projects are completed
  2. Donations have the capacity to endure beyond the original gift through our Passing on the Gift model
  3. Projects are always designed and implemented with environmental sustainability and improvement in mind

This weekend, in addition to sharing our work with Atlanta, I’ll host a three-part blog series covering these facets of sustainability and how Heifer applies them. I hope you’ll follow along and contribute your own thoughts about how genuine sustainability must not be allowed to become obsolete.

If you’re in the Atlanta area and want to attend the Sustainability Summit, there’s still time to register for some of the events. Go register now.

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Clinton Global Initiative: Designing for Impact

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It has been a whirlwind of events lately. First, I had an amazing three-week visit to Asia (India, Nepal, and Cambodia), then I traveled to California to be a part of Heifer International’s first “Beyond Hunger: A Place at the Table” event, and last week I was honored to attend the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York.

Young girls in Haiti participating in a Heifer International project

Project participants of Heifer International's goat value chain program proudly display their work. Photo courtesy of Heifer International

CGI is an extraordinary event that brings together an amazing group of individuals working in different fields to “turn ideas into action.” Heifer has had a presence at CGI since its inception in 2005. Last year was my first time to attend, and Heifer was privileged to present our Commitment to REACH: Rural Entrepreneurs for Agricultural Cooperation in Haiti.

Heifer International breeding center in Haiti

Heifer International's Tet Kole breeding center breaks ground near Port-au-Prince as part of its commitment to develop livestock micro-enterprises in Haiti. Photo by Dave Anderson, courtesy of Heifer International.

With our CGI Commitment, Heifer is working to strengthen social capital, support community building and develop rural enterprises in Haiti. REACH will improve the economic opportunities of 20,250 rural households over a period of five years in Haiti through Heifer’s proven approach of sustainable development. We are working with farmers to train them to develop their own livestock micro-enterprises.

The theme of this year’s CGI meeting was “Designing for Impact.” The charge is that we all need to be more efficient, more effective, and making the best uses of our resources. Heifer is already moving in this direction and has defined priorities that will help us increase our impact to help more families than ever before. In addition to reaffirming Heifer’s Commitment to REACH, I also looked this year to connect with potential partners for our some of our largest projects that would support our efforts in turning small farmers into business people on a scale large enough to transform entire communities and industries. We currently have successful partnerships, including Green Mountain Coffee, DANONE, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

An additional topic at CGI was gender equity. If you have read any of my previous blog posts, you know that women’s empowerment is an important and recurring theme for Heifer. Our approach, impact and success demonstrate that when we work in partnership with women, families benefit, communities advance and positive change occurs exponentially.

On a final note, I’d like to congratulate President Clinton on an amazing event. The energy was captivating, and I can’t wait to build on the relationships that have been formed.

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Women’s Empowerment is Key to Turning Oppression Into Opportunity

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At Heifer International we believe there is no development strategy more beneficial to society than the one that involves women as central players, and at the same time engages men to encourage a more accepting view of women’s participation. Our work, our stories, our evaluations demonstrate that when we work in partnership with women, families benefit, communities benefit—positive changes do occur.

And we know that given help, tools and training to enhance food production and the chance to build assets and income, these are the women who will feed the world’s exponentially growing population.

We recognize that women are the backbone of agriculture and the key driver of food production. Here are a handful of facts to illustrate this point:

  • Worldwide, 36 percent of the world’s farmers are women—compared with 34 percent for men.
  • In developing regions, the figure is much higher. In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, 60 to 70 percent of farmers are women.
  • There are 650 million smallholder farmers in the world, and 50 to 80 percent of them are women!
  • They grow 70 percent of the food that is eaten every day and have the potential to feed the world.

Despite these impressive numbers, women still face significant disparity in the resources and support they can access, including land, credit and education.

This is not acceptable.

Gender equity is a basic human right and an important component of international development work. By gender equity, I mean that women and men, girls and boys are valued equally and enjoy the same opportunities to achieve their full potential. When gender equity is present, there is accountability, efficiency and sustainability. At Heifer, we know what women can accomplish, and we recognize the value of empowering them. We ensure that gender equity is present in all of our projects – it’s one of our 12 Cornerstones.

I recently traveled to Nepal and met with many women’s groups. Let me tell you about two of them. They are involved in Heifer projects that have a five-year implementation period. The first group of women, in the initial project stage, was shy and nervous. Their husbands, also in attendance, dominated the conversation.

The second group of women had been part of their project for over two years and participated in Heifer’s Value-Based Cornerstone training. Such a contrast! These women were powerful, talking about their future plans and present successes. And the men – quiet, reverent, awestruck.

For Heifer International, development is not just about offering the opportunity of a livelihood and access to basic social services; it is about creating an environment where people can realize their rights, achieve self-reliance and participate meaningfully in society.

I am proud of Heifer International’s support of the Half the Sky Movement, which is putting an end to the oppression of women and girls worldwide. I encourage you to watch Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a series on PBS tonight and tomorrow night (9pm Eastern) and join in our shared pledge to helping women and girls succeed so they can achieve their dreams of hope, happiness, opportunity and prosperity.

Editor’s note: Photos by Dave Anderson, courtesy of Heifer International.

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