With this short article, ProFound celebrates World Food Day. We reflect on the relevance of our work in the context of the World Food Programme´s Nobel Peace Prize.

World Food Programme´s Nobel Peace Prize

© Nobel Media. Ill. Niklas Elmehed.

Last Friday, the World Food Program (WFP) received the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its ¨efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas, and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict¨. We at ProFound applaud this recognition; it inspires us to continue our work.

Since 2015, ending hunger is one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This is a challenging goal considering that last year WFP assisted nearly 100 million people who were food insecure.

Our mission

At ProFound, our mission is

“Local income generation and sustainable sourcing by linking natural ingredients producers to the market”.

This means that with our daily work we contribute to Sustainable Development Goals number 1, 2, 8, 13, 15, and 17. These are no poverty, zero hunger, decent work/economic growth, climate action, life on land, and partnerships for the goals. ProFound assists natural ingredients entrepreneurs in emerging markets to seize economic opportunities from production to market entry. We do this with the goal of making lasting local development and enriching their livelihoods. This must be achieved by creating value for producers and, at the same time, maintaining local biodiversity.

Preparing cardamom traders for trade fair participation in Japan

Our impact

A good example of our work is our contribution in the last mile of the project “Improving Income and Nutrition Outcomes of the Rural Poor in North Kayin State”.  

For this project, we provided expert advice on (international) market entry to our partner SNV. North Kayin State is a zone of Myanmar that was affected by a 15-year conflict that lasted until 2011 and we are proud to contribute to its restoration. The goal of the interventions implemented by SNV and its local and international partners is to restore and improve the livelihoods of more than 6,750 smallholder households. In addition to improving people´s nutritional status and farmers’ WASH conditions, the project also aims to help them “move forward” and improve their position in agricultural value chains, to connect to (international) markets and gain access to credit and other inputs. We provided support in these last steps, with the principles of adding value for producers by sustaining local biodiversity at the same time.

Increasing pressures to fight World hunger

According to WWF’s latest Living Planet Report (2020), earth´s wildlife populations have plummeted by 68% since 1970. The pressures that climate change is bringing to our society and the environment have been clear for years. We are reaching a point of no return.

Looking ahead, we know that the effects of climate change will worsen and so will the effects on hunger. According to FAO, climate change is among the main causes of increasing hunger in the world. Thus, if our aim is to avoid world hunger it needs to be done sustainably. This means without harming our environment and its biodiversity.

This week at the FAO partner event on connecting agroecological and integrated policies in times of crisis, it was said that we must demonstrate and convince that hunger can be avoided by reconciling agriculture with local development and with our environmental and social responsibilities. This is at the heart of what we do at ProFound and we hope to keep supporting thousands of entrepreneurs in developing countries.

ProFound celebrates World Food Day

We must build our future together, and as today is World Food Day, we invite you to support and cheer all those #FoodHeroes and work daily to achieve the Zero Hunger goal. As FAO states very well, “behind the food on our tables there is always someone who produced it, planted it, harvested it, fished it or transported it”. Today, ProFound celebrates World Food Day and we take the opportunity to thank all these #FoodHeroes. We also invite you to think with us on new sustainable ways to help them!

Blog by Nicolás Caso, Consultant at ProFound, do you want to get in touch with us? don´t hesitate to get in touch with him at ncaso@thisisprofound.com.