LOL member promotes farmer-to-farmer aid - Newsline

Rural Cooperatives, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Patrick Duffey

"Global leaders may sit around tables and discuss peace, but farmers helping farmers will build peace, because farmers know that peace doesn't have a chance where people are hungry." That was Pete Kappleman's message at a recent press conference in Washington, D.C., held to showcase the efforts of the Volunteers for Peace program of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Kappelman, a dairy producer from Two Rivers, Wis., and vice chair of the board of directors of Minnesota-based Land O'Lakes, discussed his trip to Malawi in sub-Saharan Africa. He worked there on a USAID-funded project designed to foster individual family dairy production and cooperative marketing of their milk to provide better nutrition for families and to stimulate economic development for their communities.

"The Volunteers for Prosperity initiative will allow Americans to play an expanded role in assisting people in developing countries, and give Land O'Lakes the opportunity to send more of its farmers and employees on volunteer assignments that build the food-producing capacities of those nations," Kappelman said.

"Volunteers for Prosperity is a vehicle for practical action. It facilitates the opportunity for concerned and dedicated American professionals to help meet people's basic needs and lay the foundation required for peace to exist," he said.

Established in May by President George W. Bush, Volunteers for Prosperity is a new volunteer-based initiative designed to support major U.S. development initiatives overseas, using the talents of highly skilled Americans who work with U.S. organizations in helping to promote health and generate prosperity in countries around the world.