Agriculture employs over one-third of the world's working population and three-quarters of the world's poor people live in rural areas. Nestlé spends approximately CHF 20.4 billion a year on raw materials, and works directly with approximately 540 000 farmers to help them to increase their productivity, protect the environment and climb out of poverty. About 3.4 million people in developing countries earn their livelihoods from our supply chain, so we can have a positive long-term impact on economic and environmental development and standards of living, sometimes helping entire regions to increase agricultural productivity and economic performance. Sourcing in ways that minimise impact on climate change and long-standing social issues such as child labour in the rural sector are among the challenges we face.
The wellbeing of the communities from which we draw our agricultural raw materials and local labour is vital to our success as a business and to our shareholder value. Through rural development, providing local employment and encouraging sustainable production practices, as well as purchasing directly from small-scale suppliers and intermediaries, we not only seek to protect the supply and quality of our raw materials, but also to have a positive, long-term impact on the local economy and standards of living of rural people.
We supported direct suppliers through technical assistance and knowledge transfer, and provided microfinance loans totalling USD 45 million, and ensured they operate responsibly and sustainably through the Nestlé Supplier Code. Our rural development principle is to manufacture, wherever possible, in countries from which we source commodities; today, about half our  manufacturing plants are in the developing world, primarily in rural areas and directly provide local employment to over 200 000 people. We also actively participate in multi-stakeholder initiatives to promote best practice.
distributed to farmers by 2020 with science and sustainable initiatives over the next decade and developed our policy on palm oil.
The following stories and case studies of Nestlé's efforts in the areas of "rural development" provide an interactive view of what the concept of shared value looks like in action.