Innovation

Progress comes in many forms: New ideas, new products, new ways of doing things. Farmers often need to be innovators to meet changing circumstances, and we match their progressive thinking with our own.

What farmers need

When farmers have access to technology and innovative products for work and life, the impact on their lives is enormous.

What we do

One Acre Fund takes a research-based approach to bringing technology to smallholder farmers, putting a team of scientists to work on maximizing impact for our clients.

Our farmers can use mobile phones to make loan repayments, sign up for products and services, view trainings, and more. We've rolled out the use of USSD, a text messaging-based service available on basic mobile phones, through which our customers can get services and access farming and market information straight from their phones. And we've equipped our field officers with tablets to make it easier for farmers to sign up for our products and services. These technological innovations helped farmers get through the pandemic and now they're equipping farmers to build a better future.

Innovation can mean many things. Besides technical advancements, we have a continuous pipeline of trials for new farmer-facing techniques and products to increase harvests and diversify income sources. This includes irrigation, livestock, tree-planting, high margin crops like avocados, and more. If a trial proves to make a major impact, we test larger-scale adoption and eventually roll it out as a part of our service offering.

We also recognize our unparalleled opportunity to deliver lifestyle products to underserved rural smallholder farmers - products like solar lights and quality cook stoves that would otherwise be difficult for them to access.