Since 2019 we’ve been on a mission to equip the smallholder farmers we work with to plant 1 billion trees across sub-Saharan Africa by 2030. This year we reached an exciting milestone: 250 million trees planted - that's 250 million opportunities for farmers to improve their income, climate resilience and prosperity.
Crop diversification isn't just a farming strategy; it's a catalyst for change. It propels farmers towards economic self-sufficiency, safeguards the environment, and fosters thriving communities.
Meet Angelus Mwapinga, a 50-year-old farmer from Tanzania. Determined to send his seven children to school, he leveraged credit from One Acre Fund to buy high quality farming inputs leading to a 20% increase in his harvest. His success means that he has been able to expand his farm, now growing potatoes and fruit tree seedlings. Diversification like this helps protect him against climate shocks.
Smallholder farmers are witnessing the devastating impacts of the climate crisis on their crops, harvests, diets, and families. This is not a hypothetical future risk; it is a reality they are facing today.
In just the first season farming with One Acre Fund, Claudine Ayinkamiye, a 30-year-old farmer from Rwanda, managed to produce 900 kilos of potatoes and maize. Thanks to this surplus, she was able to invest in different crops and trees, making her better equipped to withstand erratic weather due to climate change.
Trina Mwiinga grows trees on her farm in Zambia with One Acre Fund. In addition to the benefits trees provide - boosting her crop harvest, by protecting them from climate breakdown and providing shade for her animals from extreme heat - she is paid to look after them by One Acre Fund.
Fifty-two-year-old One Acre Fund field officer Alphonsine Nyiransabimana dreams of a thriving agricultural industry in Rwanda, where farmers can earn a decent living. She is working to fulfill this mission by helping farmers in her local community access credit and quality seeds so that they can increase their harvests and adapt to extreme weather caused by the climate crisis.
In 2022, One Acre Fund Rwanda launched a program to distribute high-yielding, disease-resistant potato seed to the country’s smallholders to improve harvests and incomes.
Our work with Burundi's vegetable farmers highlights how vegetable farming is emerging as a promising sustainable agricultural practice.
Discover how smallholder farmers in Tanzania are adopting early-maturing and drought-resistant sunflower seeds and are reshaping agricultural practices in the face of an ever-changing climate.
One Acre Fund has recently adjusted our support for Ugandan smallholder farmers to better suit their needs.
A look at how we equip farmers for greater climate resilience.
Maintaining and improving soil health is essential to ensuring farmers can stay resilient in the face of increasing pressures on land and a changing climate. Healthy soils produce better harvests, meaning farmers can harvest more even on small areas of land, and healthy soils mean healthier crops that are more resilient to extreme weather events.
Enabling farmers to adopt climate-smart approaches to farming helps build more sustainable food systems that protect the environment, improve smallholder livelihoods, and create new business opportunities. This is critically important as the world grapples with the combined challenges of climate change and economic crisis.
Only by equipping smallholder farmers with the tools they need to withstand the impacts of climate change can we achieve sustainable and equitable food systems.
Our Executive Director talks about the drivers of the unfolding food security crisis, and shares his vision on how we can ensure access to healthy diets for all sustainably and inclusively.
East Africa has seen several weather pattern changes in the recent past. Here, we share climate-smart agriculture tips to help farmers in the region cope better with unpredictable weather.
"I expect to harvest every time I plant millet, even in the seasons when my village receives little rainfall."
Farmers who depend on rain to grow crops are already feeling the effects of our changing climate.
Two grevillea farmers explain just how great these trees have been for their farm's health and productivity.
By creating their own compost and then using it during planting, farmers are able to return much-needed nutrients to their fields.
