Tanager Takes Flight: Celebrating our first year as Tanager
In June of 2018, Agribusiness Systems International (ASI) changed its name to Tanager and launched a new visual brand and website. Tanager – a species of bird identified by Charles Darwin for its unique ability to manipulate tools with its beak and adapt to different environments – was chosen to represent an organization that refines its approaches and techniques to help life-changing economic and social opportunities take flight. Those qualities of adaptation and innovation are reflected in the impact we have had in the last year.
From June of 2018 to today, Tanager has helped tens of thousands of people around the world improve their lives and livelihoods. Tanager provides expertise and on-the-ground knowledge to align varied interests around the common goal of improving the economic and social well-being of our project participants. This work is contingent upon the vision of our corporate and philanthropic partners and the hard work and fortitude of the project participants themselves. From embracing innovative farming techniques to improving social and economic outcomes for women, these farmers are the true heroes of our story. Bibata Traoré, a woman in the SELEVER project, overcame a hearing disability to become a poultry farmer and entrepreneur in Burkina Faso. With Tanager’s help, Babata has adapted to a difficult situation by improving her own ability to farm poultry, increasing her income and improving her status within her community. Providing support to these project participants – especially smallholder women farmers from Burkina Faso to India – will remain our focus throughout 2019 and beyond.
Building off the success and the knowledge gained from the SELEVER project, Tanager’s work at the intersection of gender equality and nutrition has also taken flight this past year. The new IGNITE project is working with Africa-based institutions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania to incorporate gender and nutrition-sensitive programming into their day-to-day work.
In India, Tanager’s project participants continue to soar. Tanager was awarded the Krishi Bhushan (Pioneers in Agriculture) Award during the National Agribusiness Summit 2018 and the Silver Mint Award by the Central Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in Lucknow for Tanager’s work in the mint supply chain in India. We have learned that supply chains can also be adapted and streamlined, and we will continue to work in India to help smallholder producers earn more money from their farms.
Like our namesake, Tanager is constantly evolving to find new ways to deliver quality impact for our project participants and our partners. One thing that won’t change is our commitment to working with our partners to co-create investments that have life-changing impact. As Tanager president Ana Bilik said in her piece for the Harvest 2050 blog “…if we bring like-minded people together, we can achieve growth for good.”