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| Land O'Lakes CEO Beth Ford speaks at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. (Photo by Danuta Otfinowski) |
"Rural America is the new inner-city, we have to be clear about that," said Land O'Lakes CEO Beth Ford. "We probably have 4,000 to 5,000 retail outlets in rural communities, so the question is: can we use those platforms to solve bigger problems in the community?"
"She thinks the answer is yes. Ford said a majority of her focus now is going toward promoting broadband accessibility for rural America in order to bolster economic development and social equity," Hitson reports. "Ford is also working to help her farmers obtain affordable healthcare. She said they have enough issues to worry about and healthcare should not be one of them." And because Land O'Lakes is a farmer-owned dairy cooperative, Ford said helping rural America helps her company.
Desnise Johnson, Resource Industries Group President of Caterpillar, agreed with Ford, and said that helping rural communities is critical, since the people who work for the company are its lifeblood, Hitson reports.
Ford and Johnson both work for companies that tend to experience boom-and-bust cycles, so both say they're always looking for ways to innovate, and both say they're struggling to attract more women. "While women comprise just over 36 percent of the agricultural labor force in the United States today, Johnson is hopeful that number will continue growing," Hitson reports.
from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2W9AACM Land O'Lakes CEO: 'rural America is the new inner-city' - Entrepreneur Generations
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