Nutrition, water and rural development. This is the 3 pronged approach of Nestle, which has moved away from traditional corporate social responsibility activities to improving the capacity of farmers to produce more and increase their income.

The Star reports on a recent seminar by Ian Donald, Nestle's head of Equatorial Africa, at the World Agroforestry Centre headquarters in Nairobi. The seminar is the first in the Centre’s Agroforestry for Development Impact series aimed at fostering engagement with partners.

During the seminar, Donald discussed many of Nestle’s initiatives in relation to improving productivity, quality and incomes in the coffee and diary sectors. The company has provided technical advice to more than 26,000 coffee farming families in Kenya and has provided advice to dairy farmers on feeding, breeding and milking practices.

“As a company we have realized you can't survive if you don't add value to everybody you touch,” said Donald “That chain is quite significant; it includes families and their children and our customers.”

Donald outlined how the company actually imports both coffee and milk into Kenya because of the expense and other difficulties associated with establishing local processing facilities.

The article goes on to discuss success with the use of volunteer farmer trainers to disseminate technologies to dairy farmers through the East Africa Dairy Development Program. This work has been the subject of a recent study by scientist from the World Agroforestry Centre.

Read the full story: Nestle boss reveals new plan for farmers