Kia has pledged to donate up to €1.5 million to plant six million shrubs in Mali, West Africa over the next three years.
The project, called ‘Kia – Planting for a Better Life’, will help to boost agriculture and economic activity for farmers and their farmers in Mali, with the car maker pledging to donate six jatropha seedlings for each vehicle sold in the 14 participating countries, up to a maximum value of €500,000 each year.
The project will be managed for Kia by the Netherlands-based ‘Trees for All’ foundation. The organisation has experience of jatropha planting programmes and has worked with Kia Netherlands and Kia Sweden on projects in Mali since 2007.
"This important project will deliver rapid, genuine and long-term benefits to Malian farmers, their families and their communities, in a variety of ways, for many years to come," comments Paul Philpott, COO Kia Motors Europe.
The jatropha shrub is a hardy, drought- and pest-resilient evergreen perennial which has numerous benefits. It is toxic to wild animals so makes an ideal hedge plant or ‘living fence’ with which farmers can ring other crops. It also helps prevent soil erosion and, from year five onwards, produces an average yield of 3.5 kg of ‘climate nuts’ sufficient to create 0.5 litres of bio-diesel fuel, boosting the farmer’s income.
"The earlier projects supported by two of Kia’s national subsidiaries have been hugely beneficial for the farmers and local communities concerned and have demonstrated what could be achieved with even greater support. Now, with Kia pledging its involvement across many key markets in Europe, the new planting programme can be taken to a much higher level, facilitating a vastly extended planting schedule," added Philpott.
