In honour of US ex-prez Jimmy Carter, UP food start-up dedicates two peanut butter varieties to him

Lucknow: Thousands of miles away from his home in Georgia where he breathed his last, former US president Jimmy Carter will live on – in the form of two new varieties of peanut butter dedicated to the “champion of peanut farming” from Unnao-based startup Nutty Village.

Carter, who was elected in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War, died at his home in Plains, Georgia on Sunday at the age of 100.

Nutty Village has decided to honour Carter for his "commitment to agriculture", Aman Kumar, who started the company in 2020, told PTI.

"As a tribute to the former president of the United States of America, considered a champion of peanut farming and rural development, we will be dedicating our upcoming range of coffee-flavoured peanut butter and barbeque-flavoured peanut butter in his honour," the 29-year-old entrepreneur said.

The two new flavours -- coffee and barbeque -- are being added to the existing dark chocolate, jaggery and unsweetened varieties.

Carter was the third American president to visit India. A village in Gurugram district, Daulatabad Nasirpur, was named Carterpuri at the suggestion of the then Indian prime minister Morarji Desai.

According to The Carter Center, he was the only one with a personal connection to India as his mother, Lillian, had worked there as a health volunteer with the Peace Corps during the late 1960s.

Kumar said the Nutty Village's tribute acknowledges Carter's life-long commitment to agriculture and sustainable development.

Nutty Village, co-founded with Sushant Berma, was inspired by small farmers around Ganga, who cultivate peanuts but struggle to receive fair prices due to dependence on intermediaries and lack of market linkages, he said. "Observing this challenge, we designed a solution to empower these farmers by ensuring better price realisation through direct market access."

"Nutty Village works with around 50 farmers and purchases groundnuts from 5-6 farmers for its peanut butter. It is working with the women self-help groups to do both the primary and secondary processing to make peanut butter, creating livelihood opportunities as well at the grassroots level," added Kumar, who has a Master's in Social Entrepreneurship from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).

Peanut farmers also benefit from the almost triple purchase price Nutty Village offers them, he said.

Fourteen-fifteen villages in Unnao district have around 10,000 farmers who grow peanuts, 2,000 of whom use organic farming techniques.

Manish Singh, a 36-year-old farmer from Unnao, said, "We first met Aman when he wanted to discuss how we could all work together for better profits. He brought us seeds and we worked on figuring out the best farming methods."

Chandkali, a 60-year-old member of a self-help group, said being involved in the secondary processing of the peanuts gets her good money.