Feed the Future Deputy Coordinator for Development Dina Esposito at the 2024 Borlaug Dialogue

Feed the Future Deputy Coordinator for Development Dina Esposito opening remarks at “Scaling Impact through Women’s Empowerment and Sustainable Agriculture,” a 2024 Borlaug Dialogue side event.

Welcome! My name is Dina Esposito and I lead the Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and I am also the Deputy Coordinator for Development of Feed the Future, the US government’s flagship global hunger initiatives that is focused on promoting more inclusive and sustainable agriculture; building the resilience of communities and systems and improving nutrition, especially for women and children.

We are thrilled to share the stage with PepsiCo to highlight our five-year partnership focused on investing in women to strengthen agricultural supply chains and the transformative impact that these investments have had on women’s lives and the resilience of PepsiCo supply chains.

I would like to begin by sharing the story of Ms. Thu, a farmer in Vietnam. Like many women in Vietnam, Thu has been farming her family’s land in Lam Dong for multiple seasons. And, although her husband isn’t as involved on the farm, it is his name on the PepsiCo contract. This is a common practice in Vietnam, and it leaves Thu and many other women farmers invisible in the supply chain.

While traditionally PepsiCo extension agents have targeted the contract holders – who are almost always men – for agronomic training and skill building, through our partnership, they took a different approach. Thu and women like her, who were not contract holders but were actively engaged on the farm, were explicitly identified as key stakeholders for agronomic outreach and training to improve their knowledge and skills.

Thu was not only included in trainings and ag extensions services, she got a chance to access and learn about modern farm equipment and technologies, and perhaps most importantly, she was given an opportunity to network with other women like her, exchanging information and supporting each other in day to day farming challenges. Thu took a leadership role in her regional Women’s Farmer Club established by the partnership, where she received agronomic and business training alongside other women farmers in her region and facilitated learning for her peers.

This summer, with the opportunity to harness her new knowledge and confidence, Thu doubled the size of her farms, and also achieved the highest yields in Vietnam – 56 tonnes of potatoes per hectare compared to a national average of 30-33 tonnes per hectare. PepsiCo acknowledged her achievement in a public ceremony and she received an award.

Bridging the gender gap requires intentional consideration of the unique needs of women and an adjustment to a business model and approach that for generations has been shaped by entrenched norms that favor male farmers.

The partnership has worked across five strategic potato-sourcing countries for PepsiCo: India, Pakistan, Peru, Vietnam, and Colombia. Since its launch, the partnership has provided training on sustainable ag practices, gender equality, occupational health and hygiene, and financial and digital literacy to nearly 6,000 people including over 4,400 women. This training has enabled roughly 1,500 farmers and farm workers, over half of which were women, to implement more sustainable agronomic practices.

USAID and PepsiCo’s work empowering women has led to increased incomes – 55% of women farmers and farm workers reported increased income from wages or farm profitability from their engagement with the partnership.

In India and Vietnam, farms involved with the partnership experienced higher potato yields, better seed conversion rates, and fewer potato rejections by PepsiCo.

In India, farms that invested in women’s empowerment achieved 13% higher yields than the control, and in Vietnam the farms achieved over 20% higher yields. These improvements occurred even as farmers faced challenges with weather and disease.

Women experienced demonstrable gains across a range of metrics critical to women’s empowerment, including voice and agency, self confidence, rights, and access to services. In Uttar Pradesh, the number of men and women engaged with the partnership who believe that women should have equal rights as men increased to a total of 63%.

In India, women farmers engaged with us increased their involvement in farm decision making, reported increased confidence in doing farm tasks independently, and increased their personal agency and confidence in communicating.

These results show PepsiCo and our corporate partners around the world how critical women are in driving greater agricultural sustainability, as well as profitability growth.

Building on this very impactful partnership with Pepsico, USAID expanded this approach to include other corporate partners, and in September, we joined PepsiCo, Unilever, Danone, McCormick & Company, and Nespresso in launching a new public-private partnership that aims to accelerate gender equality and enhance environmental sustainability in agricultural supply chains.

The new initiative, Advancing Women for Resilient Agricultural Supply Chains, has a planned, collective investment of $50 million to start, including more than $11 million of USAID funding, and aims to raise $90 million total for the effort.
To help talk us through the partnership’s successes, lessons learned, and future plans, I would like to welcome our panel moderator, Ann Vaughan, as well as our two panelists, Margaret Henry and Le Huong.

Ann Vaughan serves as one of my Deputies in our Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, and in addition to overseeing a number of offices involved in our global hunger initiative Feed the Future, she serves as our Bureau Coordinator for the effort.

Margaret Henry is the Vice President of Sustainable and Regenerative Agriculture at PepsiCo, where her team advances sustainable and regenerative agriculture practices. She has been an instrumental partner as one of the originators of the partnership with USAID.

Le Huong serves as the Vietnam Country Manager and Gender Advisor for the partnership. In this role, Huong leads the strategic planning and project implementation in close partnership with PepsiCo’s local business unit. Huong is employed by Resonance, the primary implementer of the partnership.

Please join me in welcoming our moderator and panelists. Thank you!