Climate resilience

Smallholder farmers contribute little to climate change but are some of the worst impacted. Large harvests rely on healthy soils. But soil health in Sub-Saharan Africa is declining overall, making farms more vulnerable to the effects of drought and flooding—which are becoming more pronounced due to climate change.

Beyond soil health improvements, One Acre Fund's training and products generate statistically significant increases in adoption of climate-smart farming practices - including optimal seed choices, insurance products, and crop and asset diversity.

And One Acre Fund farmers are at the forefront of one of the largest tree-planting efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2021, 2 million farmers planted 40 million trees, and we are positioned to plant 1 billion trees by 2030.

How do we measure our impact on climate resilience?

One Acre Fund runs multi-year studies of soil fertility, measuring soil organic matter, nutrients, and acidity levels (which allows plants to soak up nutrients). In 2021, One Acre Fund equipped 60,000 farmers to apply agricultural lime, a $10-20 annual investment per acre that improves the long-term pH balance of acidic soils and can increase crop yields by up to 20-40%. And farmers using our direct services consistently increased carbon in their soil by adding manure and compost. Healthier soils could store up to 20% of current global carbon emissions.