PepsiCo to invest in chickpeas, which could feed the world

PepsiCo, the PepsiCo Foundation, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a groundbreaking public-private partnership to dramatically increase chickpea production and promote long-term nutritional and economic security in Ethiopia.

The initiative, called Enterprise EthioPEA, is being unveiled by the partners at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York City.

Enterprise EthioPEA supports the Ethiopian government's agriculture sector development plans, and aims to dramatically increase chickpea production to address three distinct needs. Specifically, the project intends to:

Enable nearly 10,000 Ethiopian farmers to realize a two-fold increase in chickpea yield by applying more modern agricultural practices and irrigation techniques.  This initiative will leverage PepsiCo's and USAID's deep agricultural expertise to create new domestic and export markets for Ethiopian chickpeas, and improve the overall quality of the soil farmed.

Develop a locally sourced, nutrient-rich, ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF) to address malnutrition.  With an initial target to reach nearly 40,000 Ethiopian children, ages 6-23 months, WFP will leverage its mass distribution capabilities to assist those most in need of nutritional support through its existing operational network.  Longer-term, all partners aim to expand the program to prevent malnutrition across the Horn of Africa.

Scale-up and strengthen the Ethiopian chickpea supply chain, to harness the potential of a domestic and export market and increase the availability of locally-produced nutritious products for consumers.  For PepsiCo, chickpea-based products are an important part of the company's strategy to build a $30 billion global nutrition business by 2020.

source : pepsico, rtl be