Patria Credit and Patria Bank support the Foundation for the Development of Agriculture, founded by Carrefour, and sign a 5-year strategic protocol of 500,000 euros.
Bucharest, 8 February 2021
Patria Bank and Patria Credit sign a strategic collaboration protocol with Foundation for the Development of Agriculture (FDA), for the next five years, în amounting to 500,000 euros. The FDA is an independent organisation, created with the vision and financial support of Carrefour Romania, to support and stimulate the association efforts of vegetable producers, îin particular, and to provide marketing opportunities for agricultural products, îin general.
“For Patria Bank Group, joining this initiative is a natural continuation of what we have been doing for years: supporting agricultural producers, vegetable growers and large farmers. From over 15 years of experience working on the ground, we have seen how communities grow and thrive when economic and agricultural activity thrives. And since a one-off, one-way effort is often not enough, it's important to bring together a range of agricultural stakeholders to generate a broader impact. This is what we want by entering into this strategic partnership, to be more than one, with complementary financial resources and competences, for a common goal: to create an ecosystem through which agricultural producers have access to resources that help them at all stages of the production and marketing process.
Says Daniela Iliescu, General Manager of Patria Bank.”The mission of the Foundation for Agricultural Development is to create and implement rural development programs through economic activity. The challenge is to succeed in expanding the models to more areas so that a profound change becomes visible at the level of the whole system. This requires sustainable partnerships with all key players in agriculture, but especially with the private sector. Today, îon behalf of the Foundation for the Development of Agriculture, I welcome the long-term support that Patria Bank Group is showing for this ambitious project. Together with Carrefour România, which contributed with vision and financial support to the creation of the Foundation, Patria Bank and Patria Credit are thus showing their openness and support to invest in future generations through the development of responsible agriculture. The three companies have made a long-term commitment by choosing to contribute to the creation and support of this independent body and together we are convinced that we will bring visible change to rural communities," said Romeo Vasilache, Executive Director of the Foundation for Agricultural Development.
“I think it is time for us to set an example of association and doing things & together, those of us around agricultural producers - retailers, financiers, insurers, input producers, etc. And by bringing & together resources and know-how we can stimulate the association of agricultural producers and increase the autonomy and power of cooperatives and associations. Everything concrete and pragmatic, with actions and interventions that have a real impact. We have created and developed support and association models in Patria Credit that have led to the development of rural communities, and we will bring this knowledge to the partnership with the Foundation for Agricultural Development," said Raluca Andreica, Managing Director of Patria Credit.
The partnership has materialized through the signing of a long-term cooperation protocol (5 years) and the intention of Patria Bank Group to actively support, starting from 2021, both financially and non-financially, the activity and projects of the Foundation for Agricultural Development. The Patria Bank Group will be actively involved in supporting FDA projects and the financial support provided will progressively increase over the coming years, reaching up to 500,000 euros, as the Foundation's objectives are achieved and the impact of the interventions brings more value to agricultural producers and the communities they belong to.
The year 2021 is also the year of maturity of the first major interventions of the Foundation for the Development of Agriculture through local partnerships îin Iași and Cluj counties, as well as îin South Muntenia.
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About the Foundation for Agricultural Development | www.fdagri.ro
The Foundation for the Development of Agriculture (FDA) is an independent organisation that was born in 2019. Its role is to contribute to the implementation and dissemination at national level of associative models in agriculture that support productivity, quality and provide small and medium-sized farmers with market access and advice on obtaining funding and applying modern agricultural methods. For long-term development, the Foundation aims to implement programmes to train the next generation of farmers by supporting educational opportunities and consumer information campaigns. In order to have a strategic impact on the agricultural environment in Romania, the Foundation will promote best practices and support the continuity of programmes by attracting public and private resources. An important part of the FDA's mission is to bring together the key actors that can contribute to systemic change in agriculture: NGOs, authorities, certifiers, integrators and funders.