PepsiCo, WFP, USAID announce partnership to increase chickpea production, address hunger in Ethiopia

PepsiCo on Wednesday announced a public-private partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and USAID to increase chickpea production in Ethiopia in order to secure access to the legume, which "play[s] an increasing role in its food products," the New York Times reports. If the project is successful in working with small farmers to increase chickpea production, the "increased yield would exceed PepsiCo's needs," therefore "some of the additional crops will be used to make a new, ready-to-eat food product that the World Food Programme has used to address famine in Pakistan," according to the newspaper (Strom, 9/20).

The two-year project will provide the food product to more than 400,000 Ethiopian children, while at the same time helping 10,000 farmers across the country increase their yields of chickpeas, a WFP press release states (9/21). "Longer-term, all partners aim to expand the program to prevent malnutrition across the Horn of Africa," a USAID press release notes (9/21). The initiative, called Enterprise EthioPEA, was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York City, according to a PepsiCo press release (9/21).