Monsanto's community development drive in Chattisgarh impacting million lives

Aug. 19, 2010 - PRLog -- Monsanto's community development drive in Chattisgarh impacting million lives
New Delhi, August 19, 2010: The Monsanto Fund is the philanthropic arm of the Monsanto Company. The Fund supports organizations and programs as varied as the places around the globe where Monsanto does business. Its goal is to improve the lives of people by bridging the gap between their needs and their resources.
With an objective to provide sustainable income to the beneficiaries of Self Help Groups (SHGs)/Farmers' Groups, to augment their household income and bringing about a significant change in their family and socio-economic development in Chattisgarh, Monsanto Funds in association with SEED has been implementing its CSR initiative across 1000 villages in 2 districts of Chhattisgarh.
The main beneficiaries of the initiative are the rural poor, marginal and small holder farmer and women of the above mentioned tribal districts, who were mobilized first to form SHGs/Farmers' Groups for their collective economic development after creating awareness and disseminating information through various education and communication activities on income generation and formation of SHGs. The momentum of community mobilization resulted to formation of around 10, 000 SHGs with membership of 1, 00,000 community members. The complete SHG formation process followed affinity group method by encouraging development of individual skills for group's interest.
The members of these groups are further equipped with entrepreneurship skills and financial knowledge by organizing cluster level training programs. In addition, mutual understanding, trust, self-confidence, developing team work and leadership qualities are adequately persuaded within the members towards self management and development.
This initiative adopted an innovative credit-driven sustainable model to link SHGs/Farmers' Groups and members of these groups with various public sector banks like Punjab National Bank, Chhattisgarh Gramin Bank etc. With this model all 9000 SHGs/Farmers' Groups and 1,00,000 members are enrolled in banking system by creating saving accounts and providing biometric smart cards to the members. These linkages qualified all these members to affordable financial services at door step through technology platform.
Now credit linkages are being created to access cash credit to start micro-enterprises of agriculture farming, poultry, pig rearing, goat rearing, diary, stitching, forest produce processing, horticulture, transportation, weaving baskets and processing forest. Steps towards forward and backward linkages have also been worked out by setting up 25 touch points in strategic locations of the districts.
The Monsanto Fund initiative has already led to a noticeable socio-economic growth in project villages. The targeted population are accessing every opportunity to augmenting their household income and leading improved lives through taking active initiative to engage in farming and non-farming additional income generation activities and accessing micro credit facilities and affordable financial services for capacity building and livelihood sustaining.
"We have new opportunities for employment and we have been able to keep some amount aside as savings. Our future looks brighter and our families can look forward to a brighter tomorrow" says Krishana Kumari Gajbhiya
About MONSANTO
Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products that
improve farm productivity and food quality. Monsanto remains focused on enabling both small-holder and
large-scale farmers to produce more from their land while conserving more of our world's natural resources
such as water and energy.
To learn more about our business and commitments, please visit: www.monsanto.com
For more information on Monsanto, see: www.monsanto.com, www.monsantoindia.com or

Contact SEED- Bhawna Baghel 9868287559

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SEED is both the name and idea behind the organization. It undertakes community intervention projects under CSR, R&R, Financial Inclusion, Infrastructure and Skill Development, etc. to create opportunities for an equitable harmony between corporation and community. SEED in fact is endorsed as a specialist in the said formats, having improvised these on the field in conjunction with some acknowledged experts including its own Advisory Board, which comprises of luminaries from diversified fields and backgrounds.