Invest in small-scale farms in sub-Saharan Africa

One Acre Fund’s long-term vision is to help bring at least one export crop option to every family we serve. Right now, most smallholder farmers are limited to growing staple crops like maize or beans. With the right support, crops like macadamia, avocado, coffee, and fruits can open up new sources of income. We focus on tree-based crops, because they also are more climate resilient.

Here’s a look inside how it works – through the story of one farmer, one cooperative, and one batch of carefully grown coffee beans. Juliette Muteteri is one of Rwanda’s ~300,000 coffee farmers. She has sold coffee through Dukundekawa Cooperative for over ten years. Each harvest season, Juliette walks tree to tree, hand-picking only the ripest cherries. It’s slow, careful work – essential for producing the speciality coffee Rwanda is known for.

Together in service, – One Acre Fund

• 2025_Q3_Photo_Essay_Update.pdf (PDF)
  

One Acre Fund at 19 Years

• Scale: This year, we expect to serve over 2 million farmers (with approximately 3.3 million children) through our full service program. We are maintaining our momentum in mature markets while expanding rapidly in three “growth” markets: Burundi, Malawi, and Nigeria. We also expect to serve an additional 3.6 million farmers through our systems change (partnerships) platform. 

• Impact: Our full service program increases farm profits and assets by ~40% per year, enhancing food security and enabling new productive investments in child education, health, and other priority areas for farmers. Early harvest results suggest farmers in our largest markets will achieve higher prices for their output, but lower yields given unfavorable weather.
  

• Cost-effectiveness: Social return on investment (SROI) measures the multiple of farm profits and assets generated per $1 of donor investment in our program. This year we are trending towards an "all-in" (inclusive of all organizational expenses) SROI of ~$4.5:$1; a strong cost-effectiveness for livelihoods interventions that target the extreme poor. This SROI is also ~40% higher than 2023 levels, driven by tech efficiency gains and increased adoption of higher-value tree and cash crops. 

Across Our Program & Beyond

Implementing soil health campaigns: Healthy soil practices are key to increasing plant health and farm-level resilience. We are implementing multi-year soil health campaigns in many country programs. In Burundi, we're training farmers on erosion control practices (e.g., terracing and grass strips) and lime application (to combat soil acidity). In Malawi, we’re prioritizing soil health by training farmers on practices such as composting, instead of burning crop residues. In Rwanda, we’re expanding pH testing. We’re also promoting integrated practices like compost making, lime application, and mulching.

Growth Story: Nigeria: The Nigeria program aims to deliver One Acre Fund’s highest year-over-year growth (of 56%) in our full service program. This year we will add 30,000+ new clients across our existing states of Niger, Kwara, and Nasarawa State, in part by increasing digital repayment adoption, which enables field staff to spend more time training farmers and reaching new clients. We are also exploring biometric data capture for client enrollment and expanding beyond maize to a broader crop portfolio. 

Public Sector Funding Update: The public funding landscape continues to shift, with significant foreign aid reductions in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. government’s foreign-aid pullback has led to the cancellation or pause of ~$6.5M in multi-year grants/contracts to One Acre Fund; as a result, we are actively working to secure private funding to sustain the food security and resilience work impacted by these cuts. Our Global Policy team is also pursuing all opportunities to demonstrate the high value for money that comes with government investment in African smallholder farmers.

Further Reading – From Our Blog:

• 2024 Annual Report – Our latest annual report underscores the value of investing in smallholders and the cascading benefits to farming households, communities, and future generations.

• Small Seeds, Big Dreams: How a young farmer turned support into growth and independence – Through partnering with One Acre Fund, youth farmer Keziah Danjuma has been able to successfully grow maize, start a business, and build a more secure future.

• Small Seedlings, Big Impact– James Katungwe started with free high quality tree seedlings from One Acre Fund. Today, he has over 400 trees which protect his crops from harsh weather, improve his soil quality, and generate income for his family.