One Acre Fund
| Non-profit organization | |
| Industry | Economic Development |
| Founded | February 2006 |
| Headquarters | Bungoma, Kenya |
| Website | www.oneacrefund.org |
One Acre Fund is a nonprofit organization that supplies smallholder farmers in East Africa with asset-based financing and agriculture training services to reduce hunger and poverty. Headquartered in Bungoma, Kenya, the organization works with farmers in rural villages throughout Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Malawi.
Using a market-based approach, One Acre Fund facilitates activities and transactions at various levels of the farming value chain, including seed sourcing and market support. In 2015, farmers who worked with One Acre Fund realized a 300% return on their investment and significantly increased farm income on every planted acre.
One Acre Fund offers smallholder farmers an asset-based loan that includes: 1) distribution of seeds and fertilizer; 2) financing for farm inputs; 3) training on agriculture techniques; and 4) market facilitation to maximize profits. Each service bundle is around US$80 in value and includes crop insurance to mitigate the risks of drought and disease.
To receive the One Acre Fund loan and training, farmers must join a village group that is supported by a local One Acre Fund field officer. Field officers meet regularly with the farmer groups to coordinate delivery of farm inputs, administer trainings and to collect repayments. One Acre Fund offers a flexible repayment system: farmers may pay back their loans in any increment at any time during the growing season. Beyond their core program model, One Acre Fund also offers smallholder farmers opportunities to purchase additional products and services on credit. These include solar lights and reusable sanitary pads.
The organization was founded by Andrew Youn in 2006. While earning his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management, Andrew visited western Kenya in August 2005 and interviewed smallholder farmers about their quality of life. Many of those farmers were enduring an annual "hunger season" and unable to feed their families from their one acre of land. Upon returning to Kellogg in the fall, Andrew designed a business plan to employ a market-based approach to introducing productive farming techniques to smallholder farmers in East Africa. One Acre Fund launched in Bungoma, Kenya in February 2006, initially serving 38 farm families.
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