Plants-4-Hunger: Feed People, Protect the Planet

With your generous support, our Plants-4-Hunger program funds a variety of innovative, highly effective hunger relief projects including free school meal programs in developing countries; food tree and food forest plantings; school and community vegetable gardens; bean and vegetable seed distribution; plant-based food pantries, community fridges and meal shares; disaster relief food aid; and soy processing equipment for rural women’s microenterprise.

From time to time we’d like to share more in-depth details about some of these exciting initiatives, with today’s project spotlight being soy microbusinesses to empower women.

The majority of the world's poor are women; some 2.4 billion women are not given equal economic opportunity and 178 countries uphold legal barriers that prevent their full economic participation. Gender inequality costs women in developing countries an estimated $9 trillion a year, a sum which would vastly improve their wellbeing, their families' and communities', and boost the global economy as a whole.

The soy microbusiness model has helped lift many women and their families out of poverty while improving nutrition and food security in their communities. Through our partners Malnutrition Matters working in Africa, the Americas, and Asia, we support the provision of soy processing equipment (SoyKits) and training to women and women’s cooperatives in communities with high rates of malnutrition and poverty. The SoyKits and training help individual women and women’s co-ops build a platform to generate sustained income by processing soybeans into soymilk, as well as value-added products such as tofu, yogurt, spreads, puddings, and okara meal for breads and other baked goods.

In Guatemala, we also support our partners Plenty International's Soy Nutrition Program, which distributes soymilk and soyfoods to more than 300 children and families who live in and around the Guatemala City Landfill. They also provide equipment and technical support to Mayan women's cooperatives to improve their sales of low cost, nutritious non-GMO soy products.

Case studies and monitoring of these soy microbusiness projects consistently show improved income, nutrition and wellbeing for women, their families, and communities, as well as the creation of new jobs. For more details and photos, feel free to visit our dedicated project page for soy microbusinesses.

As ever, thank you for partnering with us to build a world that is healthy, well-fed and kind…all at the same time.

Warmly,

Ashley Capps

Links:

• A Well-Fed World website
• Plants-4-Hunger details
• Our free Climate-Friendly Food Guide

With Earth Day just around the corner, we wanted to remind you that your generous support of Plants-4-Hunger not only nourishes people in need, it also helps protect the planet in a myriad of important ways.

Countless studies affirm the crucial role of plant-based diets in addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemic risk. A study published by renowned scientists last year found that removing animals from the food system could offset the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 68%, while a meta-analysis by Oxford researchers— described as the most comprehensive study ever undertaken to measure the environmental impacts of consumer dietary patterns— found that plant-based diets produce a whopping 75 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions, generate 75 percent less water pollution, and use 75 percent less land than meat-rich diets. According to the researchers, fully plant-based diets significantly outperform all other diets in terms of impacts, with nearly half the carbon footprint of vegetarian diets.

In 2022, the world's leading body of climate scientists, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), urged a switch to plant-based diets as the single most important shift individuals can make to halt the course of climate disasters. Another major UN report, Preventing the Next Pandemic, identifies increased demand for animal-based foods as one of the leading drivers of zoonotic diseases and pandemics, as livestock production is the single greatest cause of global deforestation, habitat loss and biodiversity loss. UN experts recommend a shift toward more plant-based diets as "key to saving pristine ecosystems... restoring biodiversity, boosting carbon sequestration and lowering the risk of future pandemics."

Plant-based foods and farming systems are a win-win-win for people, animals, and the planet. This Earth Day and every day, thank you for supporting our mission to feed the most people with the least harm, and to create a world that is healthy, well-fed, and kind…all at the same time.

Links:

• Plant-Based Diets for Planetary Health
• Earth Day? We Need an Earth Diet, Scientists Say
• Climate-Friendly Food Guide