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Plenary Session: Ensuring Impact

International Year of Microcredit

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Hugh Grant, Chief Operating Officer, Monsanto Company
Original transcription by Jason Mcleod

....It is a pleasure for me to be here and I am very proud, as are all the people at Monsanto worldwide, to be a sponsor and be associated with the Microcredit Summit.

I would like to begin my brief remarks this morning with a quote, a quote from Jonathon Swift’s Gulliver Travels. "And he gave it for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together." This is not a comment on politicians. It is really praise for the people worldwide—the millions of people worldwide—who are taking small loans, very small loans, and creating something more.

As many of you know, and I feel as if I am preaching to the converted this morning, microcredit enables many impoverished people, mainly women and often mothers, to provide goods or services that were not available, or were not affordable before. They are creating value for their families, and value for their communities. And this new value in turn creates a cycle. It helps them to repay their loans and to profit from the effort as well. So, two ears of corn are created where there was only one before. And, as this cycle continues and repeats itself, it stimulates new rounds of value in the community—often completely unrelated to the original start-up effort. So I would suggest that three ears of corn are generated where there was only one before. So I congratulate all of you on the value and the energy that you are unlocking for people worldwide.

And, I am very proud that Monsanto has been a major sponsor the Summit Campaign since its inception in 1997. In 1997, Bob Shapiro, our retired Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, and a passionate supporter of microcredit, talked to the Summit and said that "poverty is our common ancestor." Despite the progress that we have made in the last five years, I am sorry to report that poverty continues to be our common ancestor. Monsanto is fundamentally committed to the success of microcredit because it represents a proven tool to fight poverty. But we are also committed to the development of microcredit because successful microcredit borrowers create new healthy markets for trade and commerce. ...I have seen many times around the world, where a farmer feeds her children, she feeds herself, if she has some left she feeds a few chickens, and if there is surplus she trades and barters. In doing so she becomes a customer. So, we are committed to microcredit because it starts a cycle of exchange and trade, and new customers are born. As a global company we are committed to providing the most productive and effective agricultural tools and technologies to farmers worldwide.

Nearly a decade ago we initiated the program to facilitate the sharing of technologies needed by the impoverished farmers around the world, and we have made significant progress in this with many people around the world, and with many people in this room. With the support of the Monsanto Fund that Sam talked about earlier, our company’s philanthropic organization, we are currently working with partners—and it is always with partners—to help design and implement microcredit projects in Mexico, Kenya, and Indonesia today. In Mexico we work with our partner, Fundacion Mexicana para el Desarrollo Rural, to provide a comprehensive training program in agronomic practices and microenterprise development, and access to credit, and linkages—and that is very important—linkages to local grain processors. Alfredo Espinoza, who is here today from FMDR, can talk to the success of these programs through his leadership. In Kenya, we are working with Pride Africa, and we recently piloted the first agricultural microcredit program in the area. And in Indonesia we work with the NGO Utika Mandiri to allow subsistence farmers to move from grain production to diversify their farming operations and get into livestock production...

My task, my commitment, the commitment of Monsanto, is to ensure that that access continues to expand, and that that choice is a real one. So, small changes can have big results, and the small loans that many of you are helping with, helps small farmers and others in poverty access technology that often is very difficult to come by. So, our commitment, my commitment, is to continue the ten year history at Monsanto, to continue public agricultural research in crops like papaya, sweet potato, rice, potato, and mustard—crops that small subsistence farmers often depend on; and to allow the choice in these technologies; to allow farmers to grow more food on less land with fewer inputs.

However, and there is always a however, what we have learned over the last five to ten years at Monsanto is that one company isn’t enough to make a difference. Today we deal with a few hundred thousand farmers, and as I look to my responsibilities within the Microcredit Summit Campaign, I have to look to the challenge as business leaders, the challenge as policy makers, and as citizens to work together more effectively. One group, one organization, one company can not do this alone. We need to work together more effectively. We need to continue to develop new partnerships and look for new ways to ensure the ongoing success of the Microcredit Summit Campaign, and encourage the creation of additional Microcredit Summit initiatives. I think only by working together and sharing our resources, our expertise, and our global reach, will we be able to make a real difference in the next five years. Only by working together, ladies and gentlemen, will we realize the hope of making one or two ears of corn into four, five, or six. I look forward to the discussions this morning, and I thank you for your attendance today.

Read remarks by Paul O'Neill