AGCO and its AGCO Agriculture Foundation together donate more than US $100,000 COVID-19 Aid, Personal Protective Equipment and Medical Supplies to Non-Profit Organizations in Europe and Middle East (EME) region
Organizations include Trussell Trust in the United Kingdom, World Food Program in Turkey and Banco de Alimentos de Madrid in Spain
BEAUVAIS, France, October 5, 2020– AGCO Agriculture Foundation (AAF), a private foundation based in Liechtenstein committed to ending hunger through sustainable agricultural development, has donated US$90,000 to three non-profit organizations to address hunger and poverty in communities worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The donations, spread across the United Kingdom, Turkey and Spain, part of the second phase of the AAF COVID-19 Aid Program, will be used to purchase and distribute emergency food and household items for vulnerable households in communities where AGCO’s customers, dealers, suppliers and employees live and work, in the EME region.
During the first phase of the aid program, the AAF supported the emergency response by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), with a funding amount of US$100,000 concentrated on the most vulnerable populations in countries in Latin America and Africa.
Please visit the World Food Program USA's donation page to support the AAF’s funding campaign or visit the SharetheMeal app and donate through the #AGCOAgricultureFoundation Team. The AGCO Agriculture Foundation matches any contribution made to this campaign up to $100,000 to double its impact by raising additional funding to feed 342 children for a year and support WFP’s lifesaving work in 83 countries, which includes initiatives to support small-scale farmers and more.
“The AGCO Agriculture Foundation is committed to making long-term impacts in our most vulnerable communities as the presence of COVID-19 calls for ongoing support,” said Metti Richenhagen, Managing Director, AGCO Agriculture Foundation. “We are proud to provide not only global but also local funding to support resources and initiatives that help communities in our EME region that are heavily impacted by the pandemic and economic uncertainty.”
The respective non-profit organizations are committed to utilize the donation to provide emergency responses and drive impacts to their communities.
Trussell Trust will direct the donation to the foodbank program in the UK to provide emergency food and support to people locked in poverty and crisis and campaign for change to end hunger in the UK. The funds will be used to support the development of an emergency storage and distribution systems to ensure that donated bulk supplies are rapidly delivered to individual food banks. The foodbanks distributed more than 6,250 emergency food parcels every day at the onset of the pandemic, and 3,000 of the beneficiaries were children.
For World Program-Turkey, the donation will be used to provide a critical lifeline to vulnerable people in Turkey, mostly refugees. The funds will also be used to support the WFP Adaption of Livelihoods Project (“Kitchens of Hope”) under COVID-19 in eight provinces of Turkey - Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Urfa, Adana, Kilis, Mardin and Gaziantep. Funds will cover for the purchase of food, raw materials, and other inputs to support municipal soup kitchens as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey. The organization will provide up to two meals per day for over 4,000 people in eight cities.
Banco de Alimentos will use the donation to enable the food bank in Madrid to obtain food, transport and distribute it to the neediest people in the region of Madrid, which has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization is collecting whole foods from supermarkets and fruit and vegetables in the central market of Mercamadrid. In addition, the organization will facilitate social integration of the most disadvantaged community and education on food waste, healthy diet and health safety. The organization is now delivering more than 190,000 meals per day, reaching most children.
“AGCO is always looking for the best way to support communities and customers in our regions. In such an unprecedented time like this, this support becomes a joint responsibility to address the impacts of the pandemic on economies and livelihood,” said Torsten Dehner, Senior Vice President and General Manager of AGCO EME. “We firmly believe that a resilient agriculture industry is essential, and our top priority is maintaining access to safe, healthy and nutritious food throughout the COVID-19 pandemic fight.”
AGCO donates personal protective equipment and medical supplies in EME region
In Germany, Fendt, an AGCO brand, and its cabin factory in Asbach-Bäumenheim produced 3D-printed face shields and donated them to doctors, local aid organisations, county associations from the Bavarian Red Cross and regional dentists. In addition, five Fendt face shields were sent to every dealer location in Germany, Italy, France, Spain and England to ensure the safety of AGCO dealers and their host communities.
In France, AGCO and Massey Ferguson are responding to the call of the specially created French non-profit organization “Les Visières de l’Espoir- “Hope’s Face Shields” initiated by 3DNatives, a French specialised 3D printing media. In the Beauvais manufacturing facility, Massey Ferguson is now using its 3D printing capacity to donate full face shields to its local community and frontline health workers who are heroes working hard to save lives from the coronavirus pandemic. The AGCO Beauvais team, together with its GIMA colleagues donated 10,000 surgical masks as well as gloves and overalls from its own stocks to the Beauvais Hospital to support the medical personnel.
In Italy, AGCO’s Gold Harvesting Competence Center in Breganze, has contributed to the fundraising campaign Aiutiamo i nostri medici (Help our Doctors) with the full commitment of all the staff and workers’ unions, raising 20,000 €. The project was promoted by the Santorso Town Council to support the local hospital’s COVID-19 centre for the whole province of Vicenza. In addition to buying essential items and equipment to increase the number of intensive care beds, some of the donations went towards alternative housing for health workers who did not want to put their families at risk by going home after their shifts.
