As you may already know, Nestlé works with farmers throughout the world to help improve their yields and the efficiency of their agricultural processes.

It was on this theme of rural development that I recently spoke at the 2010 Sustainable Agricultural Partnerships Conference in San Francisco, California.

The forum marked the fourth year of the summit and brought together hundreds of food and beverage manufacturers, processors, retailers, farmers and suppliers. It provided a unique opportunity for everyone - from representatives of major corporations to NGOs - to discuss strategies on how to measure and reduce water and carbon impacts throughout the agricultural supply chain.

I talked specifically about the close relationship our Gerber baby foods team has built with Michigan farmers - partnering with some for more than 35 years to obtain fruits and vegetables. Our work in this area is truly in the spirit of Creating Shared Value – ensuring that we receive the ingredients for our products while at the same time supporting local agricultural production and the communities who depend on it for their economic well-being.

Throughout the forum, I was struck by experiences others have with sustainable agriculture and how much the issue matters to them.  Hearing people like Alex Morgan of the Rainforest Alliance, Scott Exo of Food Alliance, Deane Little of New Sky Energy, Lauren Faber of the California Environmental Protection Agency, and many farmers discuss these issues underscored for me the strength and importance of our CSV proposition.

At Nestlé, I think we’re playing a key role in these debates, and have a lot to add to the conversation. To find out more about the biggest challenges companies like us face when ethically sourcing commodities, you can watch my interview with Martin Smith from Just Means.com here:

When you think about agricultural advances, you probably think better tools, better fertilizers, and better techniques. However, rural farmers often simply don’t know what technology is available to them, so communications are equally important in driving agricultural advancement. Burkina NTIC is launching the first social media network to share best practices, pricing data, and other useful information among farmers in West Africa. Similar information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives have already shown great success; earlier this year a Malian farmer organization doubled its profits by using similar communication platforms.

In Ghana, farmers are not only at the whims of the sun and rain, their crops are also threatened by molds which release microtoxin chemicals into their crops.  These chemicals reduce immunity and lower the foodstuffs market value. Just by sitting down with farmers, having dialogues, showing pictures and sharing techniques, Nestlé is helping entire communities solve real-life problems. As a local farmer Morou Mohammed puts it, ‘These techniques can give me a healthy life and give me a good price at the market.’