Bucks County

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — America's largest home gardening company has joined forces with one of the world's leading charitable foundations to provide nearly a billion vegetable seeds to small-scale farmers and families throughout Ukraine to bolster the war-ravaged population's food supply.

The unprecedented shipment of more than 130,000 pounds of seeds was donated to an estimated 78,000 farming families and home gardeners at no cost by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which reached out to W. Atlee Burpee Company to obtain a wide variety of seeds well-suited to the needs of Ukrainian farms and home gardens. More than 830,000,000 seeds were included in the shipment.

"Seeds selected for the Ukrainian shipment are high germinating varieties of mostly peas, green beans and sweet corn that were chosen to fit growing conditions in Ukraine," said George Ball, Burpee Chairman.

From its headquarters in Bucks County, Burpee coordinated the shipment to Poland, while nonprofits like World Central Kitchen and Global Empowerment Mission led the effort to distribute to farmers and gardeners in Ukraine.

According to Howard G. Buffett, Chairman and CEO of the Foundation that bears his name, "As a fellow farmer and a philanthropist who has worked on conflict and food security issues for more than three decades, it was immediately clear the devastating effect this war would have on food insecurity, both in Ukraine and abroad. We moved quickly to source these seeds and are grateful to Burpee for partnering with us on this vital initiative."

The Howard G. Buffett Foundation is one of the largest private family foundations in the world, known for its investments in global food security and conflict mitigation. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Foundation has invested or committed more than $450 million to support Ukraine's most urgent needs. Established in 1999, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation is a U.S. private family foundation working to improve food security, mitigate conflict, enhance public safety, and combat human trafficking. The Foundation's work in Ukraine began in 2022 shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion and is focused on addressing the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II. The Foundation's work in Ukraine is expansive and includes support to farmers to address the increasing food insecurity created by the conflict, both locally and globally. Burpee, founded in 1876 by 18-year-old W. Atlee Burpee, is a leading name in American home gardening. For 147 years, American gardeners have relied on Burpee for innovative and heirloom varieties of vegetables, flowers, herbs, and fruits, in both traditional and organic-grown seeds and plants. Since 2001, Burpee has participated in vegetable seed relief projects in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq.