Scaling Pearls of Wisdom
One component of the Scaling Pathways series is Scaling Snapshots, which are glimpses into one organization’s scaling journey, including the strategies pursued, implications of those strategies and “Pearls of Scaling…
Farming is the dominant economic activity of the world’s poor. One Acre Fund makes that activity significantly more productive. One Acre Fund supplies smallholder farmers with the tools and financing they need to grow their way out of hunger and poverty. Instead of giving handouts, they invest in farmers to generate permanent gains in farm income. One Acre Fund supplies a complete service bundle of seeds and fertilizer, financing, training, and market facilitation and they deliver these services within walking distance of the hundreds of thousands of rural farmers they serve. One Acre Fund began in East Africa, and they currently work in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, and Uganda. They organization serves more than 800,000 farmers annually, helping grow income on supported activities by an average of 40 percent per year. By 2020, One Acre Fund will serve at least one million farm families, representing more than five million people. And these farmers will produce enough surplus food to feed another five million of their neighbors.
Subsistence farmers in Africa struggle to get by when planting season means scarcity of seeds and fertilizer, and harvest season brings glutted local markets and low prices.
One Acre Fund systems enable farmers to get credit to acquire seeds and fertilizer, learn better farm practices, and sell at a good price.
Andrew Youn seeks to eradicate hunger among smallholder families in sub-Saharan Africa
Each acre managed in the program produces an additional 1,000 pounds of food, or 2,000 person-meals, each year.
Eradicate hunger among smallholder families in sub-Saharan Africa by supplying farm inputs, training, and access to markets that enable farmers to increase production and income.
Program Expansion
Program services delivered by local farmers hired as field staff, and supported by national networks of distribution and marketing points. Increased income enables farmers to repay loans and purchase future supplies and service.
After serving as a strategic consultant to Fortune 500 companies, Andrew Youn returned to school to study an MBA at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. During his MBA, he had the opportunity to travel to Africa where he met with local farmers and learned about their quality of life. The trip exposed him to the barriers to successful smallholder farming in Africa - including the lack of inputs, training on how to best utilize these inputs, and access to markets - and how the low yields resulting from these challenges led to hunger and poverty. Youn founded One Acre Fund (1AF) to address these challenges and provide a comprehensive bundle of services to improve the productivity and income potential of these farmers. Andrew’s 1AF initial business plan won first place in business plan competitions at Stanford, Yale and Kellogg, and he has gone on to win Draper Richards, Echoing Green and Mulago fellowships as well as the Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year (2013). In 2016, Andrew delivered a TED talk about 1AF entitled "Three reasons why we can win the fight against poverty," which has since been viewed more than one million times.
One component of the Scaling Pathways series is Scaling Snapshots, which are glimpses into one organization’s scaling journey, including the strategies pursued, implications of those strategies and “Pearls of Scaling…
In May 2015, a group of ambitious philanthropic collaborators, including the Skoll Foundation, pledged to make a measurable dent in Africa’s hunger crisis through a catalytic $100 million investment to…