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Howard G. Buffett Foundation Commits $13 Million Over Four Years to Develop Agricultural Markets for Smallholder Farmers in Rural Central America

DES MOINES, IOWA - The Howard G. Buffett Foundation today announced an expansion of its commitment to the World Food Programme's Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative with a US$13 million grant over four years to help smallholder farmers in rural communities in Central America. The funding will support 24,000 farmers in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua to access agricultural markets and increase their incomes, putting a special emphasis on involving female farmers.

"Small farmers play a crucial role in fighting global hunger and poverty, both for their own families and for the regions in which they live. It is critically important they have the opportunity to truly compete in the market place in order to reliably feed their families, help make their regions more food secure, and become full participants in their local economies," said Howard G. Buffett, speaking from the World Food Prize 2010 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa. "We are proud to build on our partnership with the World Food Programme, first to develop the P4P concept, and then to expand it to Central America. We hope over the next four years to demonstrate how a program like P4P at scale can truly transform a local economy and address hunger and poverty in a sustainable way."

Launched in September 2008, P4P brings together the World Food Programme's (WFP) demand for local commodities with the technical expertise of a wide range of partners to support smallholder farmers to increase their yields, reduce post-harvest losses, improve the quality of their crops, and earn a higher profit for their crop surpluses in competitive markets. With WFP as a committed buyer, farmers have a market incentive to increase the quantity and quality of their crops and to strengthen farmers' organizations. By working through these organizations, farmers are able to negotiate better prices for inputs, improve the sales price of their yield and gain access to credit markets. A key feature of the program is identifying and sharing best practices among all stakeholders including the local community, governments, non-profit organizations, and private sector partners.

"Our partnership with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation is critical to our efforts to ending global hunger," said Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the World Food Programme. "Connecting small farmers to markets is one of the key actions I consider vital for feeding the world. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation's early commitment to P4P helped WFP through the challenging task of translating a concept into a pilot program, and the Foundation's continued support has helped us roll this out globally. What's more, Mr. Buffett's first-hand knowledge of farming and farming practices makes him an especially effective partner in this initiative."

The Foundation's current commitment builds on its early critical support of the P4P concept and an investment of US$ 12.1 million to expand the program to some of the most difficult post-conflict countries, including Liberia, Sierra Leone and southern Sudan, as well as to Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. The additional commitment will help scale up P4P in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua over four years. A fourth pilot program in Honduras is being expanded through funding from the European Union.

P4P in Central America is part of a five-year pilot project launched in 21 countries to stimulate smallholder farmers to produce food surpluses and increase their access to markets. By 2013, at least half a million smallholder farmers - mostly women - will have increased and improved their agricultural production and earnings. By raising farmers' incomes, P4P turns WFP's local procurement into a vital tool to address hunger and poverty. To learn more about P4P visit http://www.wfp.org/purchase-progress.

For Further Information:

Alejandro Chicheri, WFP/Latin America and the Caribbean, Tel. +1 917 392 6159

Laura Melo, WFP P4P Latin America and the Caribbean, Mob: + 507 667 70615 Rene McGuffin, WFP/Washington, Tel. +1-202-653 1149, Mob. +1-202-390 2579

Bettina Luescher, WFP/New York, Tel. +1-646-5566909, Mob. +1-646-8241112