February 15, 2021

 

Cargill helps increase Turkish corn, sunflower farmers' yields by up to 26%

 

Cargill is continuing to support farmers in Turkey with the expansion of its 1,000 Farmers Endless Prosperity programme to over 1,175 corn and sunflower farmers.

 

As a part of the programme, farmers have received training, access to digital agricultural tools and consultancy services tailored to their fields from cultivation to harvest, and have increased yields by up to 26%.

 

The 1,000 Farmers Endless Prosperity programme launched in 2019 to support Turkish farmers in sustainable agricultural practices to increase their productivity, earnings and initiate social and digital transformation in agriculture.

 

The programme has expanded to include both corn and sunflower farmers across 12 provinces. It is also the only programme in the food and agriculture industry to have a social return on investment (SROI) calculation. The programme generated ₺2.78 (US$0.40) social return for each ₺1 (US$0.14) investment in 2020 which is an increase from ₺2.53 (US$0.36) to ₺2.78 year-on-year.

 

At a virtual press conference this month, Murat Tarakçıoğlu, Cargill Foods' managing director of  Middle East, Turkey and Africa, announced that the farmers who participated in the programme increased their yields up to 26% versus the original 15% yield increase the programme targeted.

 

"This programme is a great example of how Cargill is working with farmers to improve their livelihoods. Over the past two years, we have touched lives of more than 2,200 farmers in total. In our third year, we are planning to further expand the scope of our programme by also including the rapeseed farmers," said Tarakçıoğlu. "We also launched the Zero Waste Management on the field project. In this project we worked with İstanbul Technical University, Prof. Dr. Filiz Karaosmanoglu and PAGEV to find a solution for farmer's waste in the lifecycle from seed to crop."

 

Further steps on the programme's digitalisation were also expanded by combining the know-how and experiences of the farmers with science. Farmers benefited from digital agricultural tools such as digital soil analysis, meteorology and irrigation and weather station app, and field health monitoring from satellites.

 

Farmer participants who followed the field-specific correct irrigation, fertilisation, and spraying programme reduced the risk of disease and prevented soil pollution while also saving critical resources such as water. In addition to these savings having a positive sustainability impact, they also saved costs for the farmers.

 

"Before cultivating to plant corn on my 200-hectare farm this year, agricultural engineers visited and conducted digital soil analyses. They then sent me an SMS showing how much of which nutrients my soil needed. I realised that my fertilisation practices had been wrong in the previous years. I saved 22% of fertiliser product by using the correct amount fertiliser," said Umut Ayberk Akbay, a particpant of the programme. "Thanks to the meteorology and irrigation and weather station app, I followed the development of the corn on my mobile without needing to go to the field. Additionally, the agricultural engineers from Cargill's 1,000 Farmers Endless Prosperity programme kept an eye on my field as well and warned me of a red spider mite infestation. I used pesticides accordingly. The yield I got per hectare increased to 7,450 kilogrammes from 8,0000 with the help of this programme."

 

The 1,000 Farmers Endless Prosperity programme published its first progress report in order to share its sustainability performance and impact more comprehensively. The report provides non-financial data to demonstrate and assess the progress and the long-term value of the programme.

 

The report also features the views of various stakeholder institutions and organisations, particularly farmers participating in the programme.

 

"One way Cargill invests in the resilience of agriculture communities is through programmes like 1,000 Farmers Endless Prosperity, providing farmers with the right tools and training to adopt the best agriculture practices and maximise their crop yields to support their family, community and environment," said Tarakçıoğlu. "Alongside these farmers, we are working to nourish the world in a safe, responsible and sustainable way."

 

- Cargill