Responsible Production & Consumption

Empowering Female Farmers

Sep 16, 2015 10:00 AM ET

VIRGINIA, U.S.A., September 16, 2015 /3BL Media/ – Women play a crucial role in agriculture. Across the world, female farmers are integral to how we make many of our famous Mars products. We are committed to ensuring that we help improve the lives of those female farmers as our supply chains grow. To deliver that commitment, we are involved in projects, which aim to strengthen our supply chain by building stronger communities and empowering women:

  • Our partnership with the African Plant Breeding Academy with UC Davis has helped African smallholder farms - where many female farmers work - breed and grow hardier and more nutritious varieties of crops, with the aim of helping to reduce malnutrition in Africa
  • Together with Danone, we launched Livelihoods 3F, a mutual investment fund that will invest €120 million over 10 years on smallholder farmer projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The fund works to empower women farmers and improve the livelihoods of farming families
  • We’re a member of the Sustainable Rice Platform, an industry collaboration that develops a globally applicable set of rice sustainability standards, helping women feed their families with nutritious and quality food
  • Project Maua, launched by Wrigley, enables women and other economically disadvantaged people in Kenya to build small businesses selling Wrigley products. This helps them become economically independent and also reduces unemployment within the community
  • We want more women to pursue engineering and manufacturing careers, so Mars Chocolate UK has been working with the Food and Drink Federation and youth skills initiative, MyKindaCrowd, to host opportunities for female students aged 16-18 to visit our sites. By introducing young women to some of our exciting and varied careers in engineering and manufacturing, we hope to improve the number of women studying and applying for jobs in these industries 

For further details on how Mars aims to empower women, please download The 2014 Principles in Action (PiA) summary. 

The PiA is published annually by Mars to share how we are applying the five Principles of Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom into action, so we can make a difference to our business, society and the environment. 

About Mars, Incorporated

Mars, Incorporated is a private, family-owned business with more than a century of history and some of the best-loved brands in the world including M&M’S®, PEDIGREE®, DOUBLEMINT® and UNCLE BEN’S®. Headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars has more than $33 billion in sales from six diverse business segments: Petcare, Chocolate, Wrigley, Food, Drinks and Symbioscience. More than 75,000 Associates across 73 countries are united by the company’s Five Principles: Quality, Efficiency, Responsibility, Mutuality and Freedom and strive every day to create relationships with stakeholders that deliver growth we are proud of as a company. 

For more information about Mars, Incorporated, please visit www.mars.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.