Food insecurity continues to remain a major challenge facing Pakistan. Cargill, one of the world’s leading agriculture and food processing corporations, has collaborated with Rizq, a prominent non-profit food distribution organization, to establish Pakistan’s first ever Cargill-RizqBank in Lyari, Karachi. The Cargill-Rizq ecosystem will work to create a food secure community, reduce food wastage and serve about 200,000 meals annually in the community.
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The RizqBanks are storage facilities to save and channelize fresh and dry food. It also empowers and educates the community members and partner agencies with training and workshops. It will contribute with its four key services, RizqDaig, RizqRation, RizqBachao and Rizq Future Generation Program to end food insecurity and hunger in Lyari.
Under RizqDaiq, food will be distributed within the community daily. RizqRation will identify and deliver monthly food supplies to food insecure families. The RizqBachao initiative looks into the collection, storage and distribution of excess food to low-income households. Lastly, the Rizq Future Generation Program, under which volunteer programs comprising of youth from schools and universities are deployed to support activities of zero food waste and work towards a hunger-free Pakistan.
Commenting on the partnership, Imran Nasrullah, President, Cargill Pakistan, said, “Like many developing countries, Pakistan faces a food security crisis where millions of families go to bed hungry every day. The Covid19 pandemic has further exacerbated the situation to alarming levels.” He further said, “To date, 15 Cargill Rizqbanks have been established through which we have served over 10 million meals, saved over a million kilos of food, incubated over 1000 families and distributed over 70,000 food packs to those in need. Cargill is proud to partner with Rizq for enabling an ecosystem to alleviate hunger and malnutrition from Pakistan.
Phase Two of the program will establish Rizq Xchange, a collaborative effort of different stakeholders to mobilize resources to create a hunger-free nation. The Rizq XChange, backed by its cloud-food banking technology, aims to connect a consortium of stakeholders including (but is not limited to) NGOs, corporations, schools, restaurants, hospitals, and universities as well as volunteer programs from all walks of society to reach verified beneficiaries in real-time through a nationwide network of RizqBanks. Rizq XChange platform will be a true depiction of connectivity, measurable impact, and transparency of food philanthropy in Pakistan. The establishment of a RizqBank in Lyari, Karachi will effectively serve as a roadmap for interested stakeholders to come together and further create self-sustaining communities across the nation. This model once established in Lyari, Karachi, will also be cascaded at key locations nationwide through this partnership.
Expressing his opinion on the collaboration, CEO Rizq Mr. Musa Aamir said, “We are thankful to Cargill Pakistan for joining with Rizq on its mission to make a hunger-free Pakistan. This partnership has enabled our collective measures to reach broader communities and empower them with food security in a very short period of time. The day is not far when every household in Pakistan will be food-secure and no growth will be stunted.”
Furthering its corporate purpose of nourishing communities in a safe, responsible and sustainable way, Cargill has played a pivotal role in the program’s seed funding and will assist Rizq with technical advisory services to run and expand the food bank operations. Cargill employees will also actively engage as volunteers at the Cargill RizqBank. Rizq will manage the on-ground deployment and operations of this innovative model. They will also provide the overall strategy for deployment of the Cargill RizqBank and Rizq Xchange as part of this growing initiative.
SOURCE Cargill, Inc. (press release)
