One of the biggest challenges facing the world today is how to feed a growing population sustainably – and this in a context of important geopolitical changes and large-scale demographic shifts. 

Despite progress in addressing extreme poverty, hunger is on the rise – most notably in situations of conflict, exacerbated by climate-related phenomena, which hit rural communities the hardest. The world’s poorest individuals live in rural areas, many of them smallholders and family farmers facing issues related to climate change, soil erosion, water scarcity, poor or scant agricultural inputs and limited access to mechanization, infrastructure, etc.

So investing in agricultural communities is key to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, and improving food security globally.
Yet, it is a cruel paradox that while smallholders produce the majority of food consumed in developing countries, half of them cannot grow enough food to feed their own family. 

By directly supporting smallholder producers in developing countries through projects targeting food security thanks to sustainable farming practices, I believe the Louis Dreyfus Foundation has real potential to help them achieve self-sufficiency, food security and greater environmental sustainability. 

I also believe that education projects supported by the Foundation can play a vital role in ensuring that more people and communities in developing countries have access to the knowledge, techniques and resources that are necessary to their autonomy.

Change has to start somewhere – however small and limited the impact may seem at first. But just as farmers plant a single seed in the hope that it will grow into a larger plant and source of food for many, efforts to change the reality of a single community have the potential to change many lives for the better in the future.

The Louis Dreyfus Foundation is very special to me and I have dedicated it to the memory of my late husband, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, whose vision of sustainable, family-led business greatly inspired the purpose of the Foundation.

Margarita Louis-Dreyfus
President of the Louis Dreyfus Foundation