A Kenyan-based social enterprise, One Acre Fund raises $1.4 million with plans to serve 10 million farmers by 2030.
One Acre Fund was set up in Kenya in 2006 to provide smallholder farmers with basic interventions, such as access to naturally-produced hybrid seed and quality fertilizer, and training on farming best practices.
The goal was to significantly reduce poverty, provide food for their families and communities, improve their nutrition, and increase their incomes.
The social enterprise works with family farms in rural areas to help them build resilience for their communities and environment through climate-smart farming and programmes like the tree-planting initiative — a farmer-led movement that aims to plant 1 billion trees over the next 15 years.
According to the organization, the farmers it works with can use mobile phones to repay loans, sign up for products and services, and access training, among other things.
What One Acre Fund aims to achieve with the funds
As of 2023, One Acre Fund, which employs about 8,290 staff worldwide, claimed to have served 4.8 million farmers by 2023.
The social enterprise aims to serve 10 million farmers by 2030, which it claims is 10% of the families in the world living on less than $1 per person, per day. It currently serves over 1 million farmers across nine African countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Zambia.
IB Impact Direct Debt fund, which just invested in One Acre Fund, has since secured $16.3 million (€15 million) from several international investors, including pension funds, and foundations.
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About 80% of the fund would go towards investing in developing countries, with a special focus on sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. In these regions, the fund aims to improve access to basic services, support climate change mitigation and adaptation, empower women, create more job opportunities, and drive financial inclusion.
