Heifer Partner Elanco Aims to Feed 100,000 Families

Elanco's Marta Haley participates in a ceremony in Zambia this year.

Since 2010, Heifer International has worked with partner Elanco Animal Health in Zambia and in other countries to help tens of thousands of small farmers improve their income and nutrition through livestock and agricultural training. Marta Haley, Elanco's director for global corporate responsibility, explains how the partnership works to reach more in need while educating and engaging its global workforce.

World Ark: Briefly describe what kind of work Elanco does and how your company was introduced to Heifer International. In what countries do we currently work together?

Marta Haley: Elanco is the animal health division of Eli Lilly and Company. Our vision at Elanco is about food and companionship enriching life. Our business is dedicated to making safe, affordable, abundant food a reality both globally and locally. As a company we provide innovative products that improve animal health and protein production in more than 75 countries. Elanco employs more than 2,500 people worldwide, with offices in more than 40 countries.

Hunger is the No. 1 health problem in the world, and time is running out. More than 25,000 people die each day from hunger and malnutrition. About four years ago, when the number of undernourished spiked at 1 billion, a few passionate employees sat down and said the time for change is now. Our journey started here, and we began to explore potential partners who could help us end hunger.

Our global vision, with the help of Heifer International, is to take 100,000 families (with an average of six per family) out of hunger. Currently, we have projects in the Lampung Province in Indonesia, in the Copperbelt Province in Zambia and in the Hebei Province of China. Additionally, we are also focused on creating a hunger-free community for children in Indianapolis, Ind., where Eli Lilly is located.

Our hunger initiative, with significant funding from the Lilly Foundation, is also an extension of Lilly's overall corporate responsibility efforts, which include: improving the health of underserved people, improving U.S. public education and environmental stewardship.

What inspired Elanco to partner with Heifer?

At Elanco, we believe every person is born with two fundamental rights: the right to a hopeful future and the right to not go hungry. We had specific criteria when we were identifying a partner. As a global company, we were looking for an NGO whose focus was also global in scope. It made sense to team up with an organization that understood the value a healthy animal can bring to an individual, a family and their community. The concept of study tours also attracted our attention, as it provides opportunities for our employees and customers to be exposed firsthand to the great work that Heifer is doing.

Heifer International's respect for other cultures and long-term approach were also of interest. Lastly, and very importantly, we knew we were not interested in emergency relief. We liked the sustainable model that Heifer International applies through its Cornerstones approach, "teach a man to fish vs. giving him a fish."

Tell us about Elanco's work in Zambia and how you choose project communities.

The Copperbelt Rural Livelihood Enhancement and Support Project is our largest project to date. It's a five-year project with the goal of helping more than 37,000 men, women and children out of hunger. The interdisciplinary approach focuses on achieving household food and income security, improving nutrition and gaining access to clean water. Hygiene and sanitation education are also included. More than 4,000 people will be assisted through the placement of food- and income-generating livestock (dairy goats and cattle). Further, 33,000-plus will benefit from other communal interventions such as environmental and HIV/AIDS mitigation. The high incidence of HIV/AIDS in the Copperbelt makes access to good nutrition, particularly high-quality protein, even more important.

Our other projects include Go Women Go, a women's group goat project in the Mpongwe area, the Kaunga Draft Cattle Project near Ndola and the Kamisenga Dairy Cattle Project for women.

When selecting a country to work in, we work closely with Heifer to guide us on where the need is greatest. In Zambia, 80 percent live below the poverty line. Subsistence farming is a way of life for many who live in the Copperbelt Province; it was clear this was an area we could have a positive impact. Zambia remains one of the poorest countries in the world, ranked 164th out of 182 on the UN's human development index (2009). Additionally, HIV prevalence in Zambia is one of the highest in the world, estimated at 16 percent among adults in 2007, according to USAID figures. Half of Zambia's households look after AIDS orphans, adding to income and nutrition challenges.

From your perspective, what makes the partnership a valuable one for your company?

When employees can connect to a cause that relates to what they do, they become more committed, more connected and thus more productive. Elanco has been tracking engagement scores, and we have seen an increase as affiliates around the globe connect with local hunger initiatives.

We are in food production, and there's a need to address issues of hunger worldwide. If I'm involved in producing food for the world (i.e. as a researcher, veterinarian or nutritionist), and I have an opportunity to see hunger firsthand, then I begin to better understand why I'm working to develop better ways to produce safe and nutritious food.

From a personal perspective, I am very fortunate to work in this arena (as director for global corporate responsibility). We are relatively new on this path, so everything we're doing is evolving and the potential is unlimited.

I visited our Zambia projects in August and was overwhelmed by how much I gained from the experience. In my view, it was exponentially greater than anything we were giving to project participants in monetary value.

The sense of hope was the first thing. Though project participants face issues such as lack of income, HIV or just the challenges of day-to-day living, they remained tenacious and hopeful that things would get better. You don't always see that in the Western world. Even when there's more money, we don't always have that hope or the strong sense of community unity which was so evident.

In one example, we met a mother and father who were supporting nine children and 19 grandchildren. They were making a living purely from what they could sell from their vegetable plots. Optimistic that they would someday receive an animal, they built a structure for a cow. When Heifer Zambia staff came to do the training before the arrival of animals, the family found out the structure was totally wrong, not up to code. So, despite the cost of additional resources and labor, they built the new structure to proper code next to the first one. What a lesson in resilience!

How are your employees worldwide involved in Elanco's work in developing countries?

Employees have the leverage to get creative to raise money for Heifer. A lot of our employees work with producers and agricultural customers around the world. For example, some raise funds as business units using silent auctions, events, bake sales or food drives. One group raised $16,000 doing a triathlon in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11. Read to Feed programs have raised more than $20,000, which has gone to our partner projects in Zambia.

At a swine business meeting in Europe, the money saved by having a light lunch rather than a large catered affair went toward our projects.

In the United States, the Lilly Foundation matches Elanco employee donations to Heifer. In July we just started a new partnership with Global Giving, allowing Lilly to match donations from our employees outside the United States.

Elanco also gives out four Heifer study tours to employees each year. We also send customers as incentive trips. It's a tie-in to engagement. Employees come back enlightened; they want to be change agents. They're motivated on many levels to improve local and global communities.

Much of this is driven by Jeff Simmons, our CEO. He's passionate about employees getting "out of their bubbles" and exposed to issues of hunger. Starting this year he's given a half day each quarter for every employee around the world to volunteer to better his or her community. His goal is for Elanco to contribute 5,000 employee days per year to give back to hunger causes.

What are the end goals you'd like to achieve in Zambia?

To lift more than 37,000 people in Zambia out of hunger—in a sustainable manner. To help create market access for producers so they enjoy more income from their labor.

Partnerships are about good business and global sustainability, but they're also about people. Describe how two very different organizations can work together for change.

I've been challenged a lot in this position to answer questions like, "Is Elanco just doing this to check a corporate responsibility box or do you really mean it?"

Yes, we're a for-profit corporation and Heifer is an NGO. Our relationship is evolving, and each learns from the other. We'll never agree on every detail, but that's OK. If you focus on the same end goal, focus on getting people out of hunger, it doesn't matter that you agree on just 80 percent of the issues, you're still making progress.

Learn more about Heifer's corporate partnership with Elanco.