Birmingham, Alabama and Trinidad and Tobago – 01 March 2018 – Kirchner Impact Foundation (KIF), today announced its continued multifaceted initiatives to address global food security by formalizing its collaboration with WHYFARM – a Trinidad and Tobago based non-profit. In an effort to accelerate dissemination and enhance the reach of traditional ag extension programs WHYFARM works to promote agriculture among youth through various approaches including increasing their awareness of the world’s food problems.

WHYFARM has a vision to engage the next generation of farmers and agriculture entrepreneurs to develop bold, out-of-the-box innovations that help solve the greatest challenge facing our collective future.

WHYFARM joins the Kirchner Food Fellowship program as part of the Impact Foundation’s ongoing work around global food security and sustainable agriculture. Now in its fifth year the Fellowship is an innovative impact investment program that is harnessing the power of millennials to find, fund and assist promising socially responsible agricultural businesses through capital allocation training and providing them discretion over a pool of investment capital.

The Kirchner Impact Foundation’s international reach will also expand as part of the collaboration through the global WHYFARM movement which includes established chapters in Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Zambia, Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, Columbia and Cameroon.

WHYfarm is best known as the creator of the world’s first “Superheros” for food and nutrition security – AgriMAN and PhotoSynthesista who focus on education, communication and participation for youth around agricultural themes.

”WHYFARM is a great organization that is working to solve an important piece of the food security puzzle, a puzzle that we have been devoted to for decades,” added Blair Kirchner, Director of the Kirchner Impact Foundation. “They are the perfect example of an organization that can capitalize on our impact model – benefiting from our experience, expertise, passion and resources to help realize their mission.”

WHYFARM has been featured at numerous international conferences and gatherings including the ECOSOC youth forum at the UN Headquarters, the International gathering for Agricultural Development, the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services annual meeting, the Thought For Food global summit and TEDxAmsterdam.

“I am excited about our relationship with the Kirchner Impact Foundation and I admire their three decades of commitment to global food security. This is exactly what we need at our stage of development,” added Alpha Sennon, Executive Director and Founder of WHYFARM.  “This collaboration will allow for exponential growth of the work AGRIman is setting out to tackle globally. Massive thanks and respect goes out to the Kirchner team for sharing and supporting our vision. We look forward to an impactful, sustainable and mutually beneficial relationship.”

About Kirchner Impact Foundation
Kirchner Impact Foundation (KIF), is a non-profit organization that serves as one of the “returning” arms of Kirchner Group a traditional merchant bank widely recognized as one of the leading boutique advisors to agtech companies and their investors. KIF harnesses the positive power of enterprise to make a difference in addressing some of the most important issues of today and reflects our belief that all businesses should contribute to a positive human future.

Through the Kirchner Impact Model (“returning” with head, hip and heart) the foundation promotes capital efficiency and sustainable enterprises. KIF activities aim to generate a measurable, social and/or environmental benefit, primarily across four sectors: Agriculture/Food, Health/Life Science, Energy/Resources and Education. www.kirchnerimpact.com/impact-model/

For more information:
Steve Dauphin | Director | +1 205.602.9845| sdauphin@kirchnergroup.com

Kirchner Group
Kirchner Group was founded in 1985 on two fundamental premises: every business can be improved and every business should improve the world. Today, the firm is a values-based corporate ecosystem, committed to the integration of “earning and returning”.

The firm provides advisory and operational services, enterprise development and transactional support to companies, investors and institutions through a proprietary approach that dovetails domain and process expertise. Kirchner Group also manages assets for family offices and some of the world’s largest insurance companies, commercial banks and institutional investors. www.kirchnergroup.com

For more information:
Blair G. Kirchner | Managing Director | +1 205.313.0784 x202 | bgkirchner@kirchnergroup.com

WHYFARM

WHYFARM is a not-for-profit organization based in Trinidad and Tobago, our organisation is aimed at promoting agriculture among youth by increasing their awareness of the world’s food problems and by doing so; grow the future feeders of 2050. This is done by transforming the negative perception associated with agriculture among communities, to children in particular, into a sector which is worthwhile through agri-edutainment (agricultural education and entertainment) to counter the challenges related to food security in our communities and worldwide.

For more information:

Alpha Sennon | Founder and Executive Director | +1 868 382 5780 | whyfarmit@gmail.com