The Marginal Funding Opp: Closing the Hunger Gap for More Smallholder Farmers in Africa
By 2030, the World Bank forecasts that 9 out of 10 of the world’s $1-a-day poor will reside in Sub-Saharan Africa, predominantly in rural places. This incredible demographic concentration of extreme poverty presents a unique impact opportunity for One Acre Fund, as we now have operations in ten countries which collectively hold over two-thirds of the continent’s estimated base of ~50 million smallholder farmers.
Through bottom-up modeling of new territory expansion, increased market penetration, and new partnerships, One Acre Fund established a realistic pathway to reach 10 million farm families by 2030, representing approximately 10% of the planet’s $1-a-day poor.
>> However, we have been forced to slow our growth plan for 2025 due to lack of sufficient funding; in order to continue expanding our program to reach new farming families, we require additional support.
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The Challenge
Seventy percent of the world’s poor are rural families who make their living through small-scale farming. They consume nearly everything they grow often with little surplus left over to sell for income. Crop yields are particularly low in Sub-Saharan Africa, and many families face an annual “hunger season,” a period of meal-skipping and substitution before the next harvest. Without access to credit or enough income to spend on modern farming tools and training, these families struggle to break generational cycles of poverty.
Our Approach
We have pioneered a holistic market bundle of financing, high-quality farm inputs, on-farm training, and market support that enables smallholder clients to dramatically improve their yields, increasing their income on supported activities by an average of 40%+. This income boost enables clients to alleviate hunger and extreme poverty, increase their resilience to external shocks, and unlock their full potential — as farmers and as providers for their families.
Continued scaling our our model to additional farmers in 2025 will require:
Hiring and training of local full-time Field Officers: Our core program is delivered by local Field Officers, primarily farmers from the communities we serve. Staff undergo intensive training in pedagogy and project management and receive ongoing training at weekly meetings.
Community engagement: Before launching operations in any community, One Acre Fund’s Field Officers work to develop close relationships with local village officials, leaders and Government officials at varying levels. They explain the merits of our program, invite visits during key activities in program delivery (e.g., input distribution, field training), and work to resolve any questions or concerns among local authorities.
Farmer enrollment and Farmer Group formation: Field Officers engage in a farmer enrollment process, marketing our program to prospective farmers and facilitating contract signing. The first stage in our enrollment process is recruiting volunteer Farmer Group Leaders — this is often done by tapping into existing networks of community leaders. Each One Acre Fund Group Leader then mobilizes a group of 8-16 potential clients. After learning the details of the program, Farmer Groups who elect to join One Acre Fund sign a contract, and select their input types and land size.
Procurement and distribution of farm inputs and other life-improving products: One Acre Fund has strong relationships with manufacturers and input suppliers in Sub-Saharan Africa and globally. We procure thousands of tons of high-quality inputs, store them in dozens of warehouses, then distribute them in 5-10 ton allotments to market points (typically within 1 mile of our clients) where farmers can pick them up.
Provision of loans: Unlike other organizations serving our target population, rather than handouts, we provide the option of purchasing farm inputs and other technologies on credit. This gives our clients a commanding voice in our program delivery and enables our sustainable business model, with the majority of program costs covered through farmer loan repayments. As our clients typically have irregular or low incomes, Field Officers collect loan repayments on a flexible basis up until the season’s deadline (a few weeks after each country’s harvest).
Training on good agricultural practices (GAP): One Acre Fund Field Officers deliver tailored field-based trainings on a range of improved climate-smart agricultural techniques to boost farmers’ yields and ensure strong impact. In 2025, our Field Officers will conduct ~20 in-field and digital sessions over a typical 10-month season and regularly visit clients’ farms to offer individual guidance on planting practices.
Post-harvest support and market facilitation: At harvest time, Field Officers train farmers on proper crop storage techniques and how to connect to local markets. We also equip farmers with optional add-on products to prevent pest-related post-harvest loss. Such support allows them to store a portion of their harvests and sell several months later during the off-season, when supply is low and prices are high.
Our Impact
We benchmark our success on our ability to make farmers more prosperous. Every year, we rigorously measure our results against a control group in each country of operation. On average, farmers working with One Acre Fund increase their incomes on supported activities by roughly 40 percent. In 2023, these farmers realized a nearly 150 percent return on their investment. With the improved harvests, farmers are able to end hunger in their homes, and invest profits from surplus sales into education for their children, new businesses, and other productive assets.
Your investment would enable the hardest working farm families on earth to chart their pathway out of poverty and into prosperity.
Claire McGuinness
Strategy & Partnerships Manager
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Thanks for the question, Toby!
One of One Acre Fund’s key metric’s is SROI, or social return on investment. This is a ratio that compares the amount of funds donated to the additional profits generated for farmers who participate in our program. In other words, it measures how many additional dollars end up in a farmer’s pocket for each dollar of donor investment.
A cash transfer model has an SROI of 1:1, as each dollar donated equates to one dollar given to the recipient. One Acre Fund has an SROI of 1: 3.9 (for more detail on this, you can reference our webpage on SROI here: https://oneacrefund.org/our-impact/how-we-measure-impact/what-social-return-investment). All models have a role to play in the social sector, and cash transfer is a critical tool in the toolbox. But for One Acre Fund, we see leverage on donor investment is a key north star efficiency metric for investments in a farming household’s productivity.