USA: Cargill, Inc. has provided a U.S.$1 million gift to The Nature Conservancy to support conservation and sustainable agriculture initiatives in three countries in three separate continents, World-Grain posted on January 18. The two-year grant will help the Arlington-based non-profit organization in three priority-designated Conservancy sites: China’s northwest Yunnan province, Brazil’s Amazon region and along the Mississippi River in the United States. "This expanded, global relationship represents an entirely new level of our support and will enable us to help champion prudent conservation practices around the world that are simple, actionable and measurable," said Warren Staley, chair and chief executive officer for Cargill.

In Brazil’s Amazon region, Cargill’s grant will help to support Conservancy efforts to increase awareness and use of agricultural best practices among soy producers. Brazil was projected to harvest a record 64.5 million tonnes of soybeans in 2004-05, compared with 52.6 million tonnes in 2003-04.

Environmentalists, however, are concerned the new soybean plantations are having a negative effect on the rainforest. The Amazon lost 10,000 square miles (26,000 square ha) of forest cover in 2003. Cargill’s fund in Brazil will help promote sustainable economic development. The Conservancy has worked with farmers and governmental and private sector agricultural partners to encourage better management practices and conservation opportunities for habitat located on private lands.

"The Conservancy has already met with 200 area producers in Brazil’s Para state to explain this initiative and generate collective interest in the development of best practices," said Steve McCormick, president and chief executive officer of The Nature Conservancy. "The Cargill partnership effort will help showcase compatible agricultural practices that balance socio-economic and ecological needs."

For ecological reasons on the other side of the world, Cargill’s grant will assist the Conservancy’s Yunnan Rivers Project in China. The Conservancy is developing conservation and natural resource management plans to protect critical habitat and watersheds. "The Conservancy’s work in the region is considered a first stage in assisting China’s government with the development of a natural conservation blueprint," McCormick said.

He added Cargill’s funding would support environmental awareness programs, alternative energy and economic development initiatives in the area. Closer to home, Minneapolis-based Cargill and The Nature Conservancy are working to implement a series of conservation strategies to help restore the natural systems of the Mississippi River.

They want to restore bluff-floodplain landscapes, naturalize water flow regime, promote ecologically compatible land use and inform and educate public officials and landowners about the threats to the natural resources of the region. "The relationship between Cargill and The Nature Conservancy helps advance the Conservancy’s scope and breadth of its global conservation work," McCormick said. "We applaud Cargill’s vision and are grateful for its support.

"This is a tremendous example of what can be achieved through effective partnerships between the private sector and conservation groups."

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