<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Heifer International, a nonprofit organization focused on global hunger and poverty issues, has joined the Libra Association, citing the project's potential to help poor farmers access credit.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Less than 10 percent of "small-scale farmers" around the world have access to reliable credit, says the organization, referring to a statistic from the United Nations. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"We believe the Libra project has the potential to deliver a lower-cost, more accessible and more connected global financial system," Heifer's CEO Pierre Ferrari wrote in a </span><a href="https://www.heifer.org/blog/heifer-international-joins-libra-association.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">blog post</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that announced the news.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The addition of Heifer brings the total number of members in the Libra Association to twenty-three. In February, </span><a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/56623/e-commerce-giant-shopify-joins-the-libra-association"><span style="font-weight: 400;">e-commerce firm Shopify</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and crypto brokerage firm </span><a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/57072/crypto-broker-tagomi-to-join-libra-association-report"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tagomi joined</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, seemingly giving the project new life after backlash from policymakers and a rash of </span><a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/42979/ebay-and-stripe-drop-out-of-facebooks-libra"><span style="font-weight: 400;">high-profile departures</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> had cast doubt on its future.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Last week, the Libra Association </span><a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/daily/54860/the-libra-association-is-weighing-a-shift-to-a-u-s-dollar-backed-stablecoin"><span style="font-weight: 400;">announced</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that instead of pursuing a stablecoin backed by multiple fiat currencies in reserve, it will issue several single-currency stablecoins. A Libra token will still exist but will be a "digital composite" of these single-currency stablecoins. This and other changes are ostensibly aimed at easing the concerns of regulators, with strong indications that the platform is being built in part to appeal to central banks – especially those at work on digital currencies of their own.</span></p><br /><span class="copyright"><p>© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.</p> </span>