SOURCING & WATERSHED The Madre Tierra project is implementing an innovative sustainable model to empower Mexican smallholder strawberry farmers through a transformative set of training, technologies, access to capital, and connection to markets. The project enables producers to develop high quality, sustainable and regenerative production.
In Mexico, 76% of farms generate only 16% of total agricultural income. In addition, 50% of farmers cultivate less than two hectares of land and face unique challenges when it comes to growing and selling their crops: a lack of technical knowledge, low productivity and quality, lack of market access and unsustainable farming practices.
With the support of Danone Ecosystem and TechnoServe, the Madre Tierra project was co-built with a strong alliance of stakeholders: Danone Cycles & Procurement, Grupo Altex, Fundación Walmart, Nuup and the German development agency GIZ. It was launched to strengthen farming communities and empower them with technical and technological resources. This enables smallholder farmers to produce high quality strawberries in compliance with competitive and sustainable standards regarding soil and water management, biodiversity preservation and optimized fertilization. As a result, the new operation methods allow producers to access new markets and increase their net income.
Over 4 years (2019-2023), the project goal is to help farmers and farm workers transition to regenerative agriculture practices, with a special focus on water consumption—which is expected to decrease by 20% by 2023. All of this increases community members’ wages and improves working and farming conditions, therefore securing farming businesses well into the future.
Under the photography, some of the project's ambitions.
in co-funding
Families and farmes benefited
% of net income increase
