ONE ACRE FUND
THE IDEA
Deliver the elements of success for one acre farmers bundled together: use community groups to deliver training, credit and market access to small-holder farmers
Andrew Youn
After a close encounter with never-enough-to-eat poverty in rural Africa, Andrew chucked his management consulting job, got an MBA, and started One Acre Fund. Now he lives in western Kenya, where the ramshackle One Acre HQ doubles as a poverty solutions lab for a growing community of overachievers willing to work for nothing.
Millions of families have only one significant asset: a plot of dirt smaller than an acre. With the right ingredients they can turn it into a real business.
75% of the poorest people in the world are farmers who have been bypassed by the Green Revolution, the emergence of global markets, and the spread of microfinance. Seeing opportunity in disparity, Andrew Youn started One Acre Fund in Kenya and Rwanda to pioneer a new model for investing in small, rural farmers, much as microfinance has done for small urban businesses. One Acre Fund bundles together what farmers need, providing groups of farmers with training, inputs, technologies, credit and access to markets. One Acre recovers revenue by taking a cut from sales, and projects that at scale they will generate a 100% increase in farm income for less than $33 per family in donor costs. This model, applicable to a host of similar settings, could provide a path out of poverty for millions of farmers.
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