HONG KONG AND HUBEI, CHINA, February 14, 2011 – 20 corporate executives from across the globe arrive in Hong Kong today to attend the eighteenth Global Young Leaders Programme (YLP) being run by the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT). Executives from a variety of renowned international companies, including NEC, DBS, Orix Corp, IMC, Sonepar, Swire, will travel to one of the poorest regions of Hubei, to work with smallholder farmers in the Heshuiping region. Their job is to help design a five-year development plan to enable the Integrated Farmer’s Association of Heshuiping (IFAH) to become self-sustaining. This is a pilot model and includes a micro-finance arm, organic supply chain and public services. The partners behind this initiative include Professor YANG Tuan of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and the People’s Government of Jianshi Country, Hubei Province.

For over a century farmer’s associations in East Asia have played a crucial role in improving the rural economy, promoting modern agriculture and protecting the interests of farmers and their communities. While the abolition of the commune system in 1984 liberalized farming in China and gave farmers the production ownership, the allocated land is generally insufficient to support a family. In addition the delivery of public services has long since become fragmented and disorganised. The IFAH in Hubei has created an opportunity to not only provide China’s poorest smallholder farmers to compete in one of the toughest agricultural markets in the world, but also provide social protection through public services. To do this successfully over the long-term the IFAH must strengthen its asset base and this is where the YLP participants play a crucial role. Executives on the YLP will seek to identify additional revenue streams within the local agricultural sphere and develop a strategy to scale-up its existing agricultural services to generate revenue, develop a mechanism to integrate government resources and advise the IFAH on micro-finance initiatives. Surpluses from these activities will go towards funding much needed public services.

Rural development policy in China is at a critical juncture. It needs to maintain food security across the nation whilst managing the serious challenges associated with migration. This shouldn’t necessarily be a problem when you consider the fact that China has a farming population of 700 million smallholder farmers. However, these farmers face mounting difficulty in accessing the world’s largest agricultural production and consumption chain. Smallholder farmers have little bargaining power and lack the economy of scale to enter the competitive market, mainly because they find it difficult to access markets and information. Without stable sales channels and with little capacity to bear the risk of price fluctuations, many farmers live on unstable incomes and cannot plan for the long term. Moreover, due to a lack of access to capital, farmers also find it difficult to enter the value chain (a value chain can be thought of as a set of activities, services, and products that lead to a product or service that reaches the final consumer). In practice the bigger farmers are the entrepreneurial and more capable ones and ultimately they dominate most of the professional cooperatives, which on average only represents 10 per cent of all farmers.

The work and research carried out by the IFAH, CASS, the local government and the final output produced by the YLP participants, together has the potential to create a ground-breaking model; to be emulated in other parts of China which may serve to inform and lead rural social policy reform.

About the Global Institute for Tomorrow (GIFT) www.globalinstitutefortomorrow.com

GIFT is a social venture think tank based in Asia that is focused on the relationship of Asian society and values with those of the rest of the world. The aim of our programmes and research is to provide innovative business education whilst linking participants with dynamic social enterprises in the region. Our work seeks to prepare future leaders of corporations, government and civil society to think differently about the role of business in society.

To date GIFT has conducted 17 YLPs in six countries which have focused on topics as diverse as forestry, elderly healthcare, renewable energy solutions, and sanitation.

GIFT runs 5-6 Global Young Leaders Programmes (YLP) each year – designed in both open and specially tailored formats – and is currently reviewing candidates and corporate partners for its calendar of programmes in 2011.

For more information about GIFT and the Global Young Leaders Programme (YLP) please contact Eric Stryson, Director at +852 3571 8103 or via email at: