[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 10 (Thursday, January 16, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E93]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               ALLEVIATING HUNGER IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 16, 2014

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I submit an article that appeared recently 
in The Boston Globe about innovative work being done to help alleviate 
hunger in developing countries using safe storage technologies.

                 [From the Boston Globe, Dec. 17, 2013]

         For Phil Villers, Helping Feed the World is in the Bag

                           (By Bella English)

       Concord.--Phil Villers has founded several high-tech 
     companies, but the one he oversees now offers something much 
     more basic: a way to alleviate hunger in developing 
     countries. GrainPro, Inc., which Villers runs out of Concord, 
     makes airtight, impermeable bags of polyvinylchloride, 
     similar to the material used by the Israeli Army to protect 
     its tanks in the desert heat.
       The bags are critical because about one-fourth of grain 
     products grown in developing countries or shipped to them--
     rice, peanuts, maize, seeds, beans--are lost to insects or 
     rodents, or rot in cloth or jute storage bags.
       GrainPro's ``cocoons'' are made of the same material as the 
     company's bags, and serve as huge ``ultra-hermetic'' 
     encasings for grain bags. They can reduce grain losses from 
     25 percent to less than 1 percent, Villers says, and the 
     company concentrates on hot and humid countries in Africa, 
     Asia, and Latin America.
       ``The insects suffocate, and the rats can't get a tooth-
     hold,'' says Villers, who joined GrainPro as a board member 
     in 1996 and took over shortly after, when the company's 
     president was injured in a car accident.
       ``We eliminate the need for pesticides, and we can protect 
     food supplies against all kinds of calamities such as 
     typhoons and earthquakes,'' Villers says.
       `We eliminate the need for pesticides, and we can protect 
     food supplies against all kinds of calamities such as 
     typhoons and earthquakes.'
       During Typhoon Haiyan, which recently devastated the 
     Philippines, the rice, cocoa, and seeds stored inside the 
     cocoons were protected. In fact, GrainPro's products are all 
     made at a factory on the former US Naval Base at Subic Bay, 
     75 miles from Manila.
       ``The cocoons are massively solid when filled with bags,'' 
     Villers says. ``They're like a brick outhouse. They just 
     don't move.''
       The bags and cocoons are used in 97 countries, from small 
     villages to national food authorities. Villers deals with the 
     US Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and 
     other agencies and private companies. ``We know that there 
     are over 100 million people who don't have enough to eat in 
     Africa alone,'' he says.
       GrainPro is, as he calls it, a ``not-only-for-profit'' 
     company. ``We take our social mission very seriously,'' he 
     says. ``But to be successful we have to be profitable, and we 
     are. We're growing at 50 percent a year.'' The smaller bags 
     sell for $2 to $3 each, while the cocoons start at $1,000. 
     The company is developing a thinner, cheaper line of cocoons.
       One of their biggest customers is the Ghana Cocoa Board, 
     and in Rwanda, hundreds of cocoons are protecting corn, 
     seeds, and rice.
       GrainPro also has a minor market of coffee growers and 
     roasters in the United States. ``We tell them we can't change 
     bad coffee to good coffee, but we can make sure your good 
     coffee stays good,'' says Villers.
       The walls of Villers's small office bear some health care 
     posters and awards. The staff consists of him, an 
     administrative assistant, and a financial manager. In 
     Washington, there's a vice president for food security.
       The rest of the 125 employees are in the Philippines, in 
     research and development, and production.
       Martin Gummert is a senior scientist with the International 
     Rice Research Institute, a nonprofit headquartered in the 
     Philippines and dedicated to improving the yield and quality 
     of rice in poor countries. The agency has collaborated with 
     GrainPro to develop the grain bags.
       ``GrainPro is a company with a big social conscience,'' 
     says Gummert. ``They started small, promoting hermetic 
     storage against many odds in the initial years.''
       That his company is doing well while doing good makes 
     Villers a happy man. ``I love what I do and I'm trying very 
     hard to make sure my life counts, not just to me and my 
     family,'' he says.
       Philippe Villers was 5 years old when he fled Paris with 
     his family two hours ahead of the German Army. His father, a 
     member of the French Army, left for London disguised as a 
     Polish officer. Once there, he joined the resistance.
       Philippe, his sister, and mother headed to the safety of 
     Montreal. After the war, the family was reunited and moved to 
     New York. At age 10, Philippe became a US citizen, and his 
     life since then has unfolded like an immigrant version of the 
     American Dream.
       He graduated with honors from Harvard and earned a master's 
     degree in mechanical engineering from MIT. He founded 
     companies and made good money. Long a social activist, he put 
     his money where his mouth was.
       In 1982, Villers and his wife, Kate, started the nonprofit 
     Families USA Foundation, dedicated to achieving quality 
     health care for all Americans, and they've been cited by 
     President Obama for their work.
       Kate Villers is also the president and founder of the 
     foundation's sister organization, Community Catalyst, a 
     nonprofit working in more than 40 states to build support for 
     improved health care and insurance rights.
       The couple, who live in Concord, apparently have passed 
     along their helping hands philosophy to their daughters. 
     Their oldest runs a foundation in Costa Rica to improve 
     preschool education for poor children. Their youngest is 
     executive director of the Mass. Senior Action Council, a 
     nonprofit grassroots group of senior citizens fighting for 
     social justice. Their son, who is in the film business, lives 
     in Budapest.
       Though he can talk on and on about his pet subjects--
     alleviating hunger, providing affordable health care--Villers 
     is less talkative about himself. He's not interested in 
     discussing the motives behind his do-good work.
       ``My lifelong goal has been to make a difference in this 
     country,'' he simply says. Is it because of the opportunities 
     the United States provided an immigrant boy? ``I'll leave 
     that to psychologists.'' he adds, with a bemused half-grin.
       He won't even give his age, but will say that he graduated 
     from Harvard in 1955, along with David Halberstam, ``a great 
     guy.''
       Villers is a member of the ACLU's President's Council and 
     the executive director's leadership council of Amnesty 
     International. He describes himself as ``a change agent and a 
     human rights activist.''
       Just don't ask him why.

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