PepsiCo Receives Care Impact Award for Commitment to Gender Equality and Empowering Women in Agriculture Globally

Today, CARE, the leading global poverty-fighting organization, presented Eugene Willemsen, PepsiCo’s CEO for Africa, Middle East, and South Asia (AMESA), with the CARE Impact Award for Corporate Vision for PepsiCo’s partnership with CARE’s She Feeds the World program. The CARE Impact Awards celebrate forward-thinking individuals who set the standard for generosity, strive to end global poverty and share CARE’s commitment to innovation, social justice and the empowerment of women and girls. 

In a worldwide effort to create positive change, PepsiCo and The PepsiCo Foundation teamed up with CARE to develop She Feeds the World (SFtW), a program to teach, equip, train and advocate for women’s empowerment and gender equality in agriculture across the world. SFtW will help women gain access to land rights, financing, and markets; acquire quality inputs and equipment; and implement sustainable agriculture practices. The program supports food security and economic opportunity in the long-term and helps communities respond to systemic shocks like COVID-19 and is anchored in PepsiCo’s pep+ (pep Positive) goal to spread regenerative practices across seven million acres of land, support women small-scale producers, and strengthen farming communities.

The partnership was launched in 2019 as a broader effort by PepsiCo to support a more sustainable food system by empowering women in its own agricultural supply chain, pledging 18.2 million dollars to support approximately five million female farmers and their families. The grant supports women farmers in the countries where PepsiCo and CARE work and who are experiencing high rates of poverty and malnutrition yet have significant potential to increase agricultural productivity, including Egypt, Peru, and Uganda, and will expand to other countries. As of 2020, the program has provided more than 700,000 women small-scale producers and their families with the tools and training they need to foster sustainable, long-term growth. In 2022, the program will expand into Colombia, Nigeria, Turkey, Thailand, and Vietnam.

“It is a tremendous honor to receive this recognition for PepsiCo’s role in tackling gender equality in food systems. On behalf of PepsiCo and The PepsiCo Foundation, I am immensely proud of our partnership with CARE on She Feeds the World to help train the women leaders of tomorrow. I believe that this award comes as a commemoration to our pep+ strategy, where sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. As part of our positive agriculture agenda, we aim to spread regenerative farming practices and improve the livelihoods of more than 250,000 people in our agricultural supply chain by 2030. She Feeds the World is a key program to achieve our target as it gives women an opportunity to grow, thrive and become change agents, that is why, when you empower a female farmer... you change the world,” said Eugene Willemsen, PepsiCo CEO AMESA.

Globally, women make up half of the agriculture workforce but many challenges and unequal conditions put women farmers at a significant disadvantage before they can begin. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates, if women farmers had the same access to resources, they could increase farm yields by 20-30 percent. That impact alone could reduce hunger for 100-150 million people. Add in COVID-19, and its impact has clearly devasted the global food system and exacerbated the world’s hunger crisis – and women and girls are amongst the hardest hit during this pandemic. Ensuring that women have the resources to feed their families and communities will not only help combat COVID-19-related hunger but is critical to building a more a resilient, sustainable food system.

Michelle Nunn, President and CEO, CARE USA, said, “This award honors Eugene, a champion for sustainable food systems and a global advocate for women in agriculture. We are especially grateful for his leadership at PepsiCo and for our shared commitment to advancing resilient food systems and opportunities for women in agriculture as part of the global recovery. His acceptance of this award will ensure that the ambitions and the dreams of those who dare for a better life will be heard.”

In addition to philanthropic investments like this partnership with CARE, PepsiCo aims to support a more sustainable food system by advancing and enhancing women’s roles in the company’s agricultural supply chain, including through its Sustainable Farming Program currently active in 38 countries, and by investing in multisector agricultural programs that have the potential to achieve systems change at scale. Further, She Feeds The World is a signature program of Food for Good, PepsiCo’s global commitment to advancing food security through collaboration in communities where we live and work.