Recent News

January 2012: One Acre Fund listed as Top 100 NGO by Global Journal

The Global Journal includes One Acre Fund on their inaugural list of the world's Top 100 NGOs. The first international ranking of it's kind, the list recognizes the significant role of NGOs as influential agents of change on a global scale.

December 2011: The Forbes Impact 30 Includes One Acre Fund

One Acre Fund is honored to be included in the Forbes Impact 30, the magazine's first-ever list of the leading social entrepreneurs who are "tackling the world's most intractable problems."

November 2011: One Acre Fund at the Global Microcredit Summit

Stephanie Hanson, One Acre Fund's director of policy and outreach, spoke on a panel about agriculture finance at the Global Microcredit Summit in Valladolid, Spain on November 15.

November 2011: The WorldWatch Institute Interviews One Acre Fund

The WorldWatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet blog published an interview with Margaret Vernon, One Acre Fund's Burundi country director and former director of Rwanda operations. 

November 2011: Field Note Published by Microlinks

Microlinks, a USAID-funded website for knowledge sharing among microenterprise practitioners, published an in-depth field note on how One Acre Fund enables smallholder farmers to increase their incomes using a complete service model.

October 2011: ONE Showcases One Acre Fund

ONE, a grassroots advocacy organization that fights extreme poverty, showcases a One Acre Fund client on its blog.

October 2011: The Solutions Journal Looks at the One Acre Fund Model

The fall issue of the Solutions Journal, an academic publication that examines solutions to the world's most pressing development challenges, includes an article about One Acre Fund's program model and its potential to revitalize agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa.

October 2011: The World Food Prize Symposium Features One Acre Fund

One Acre Fund's Rwanda country director, Eric Pohlman, spoke at two events at the World Food Prize symposium in Des Moines, Iowa. On October 12, he spoke on a symposium panel about young leaders in agriculture development (check out the video here). On October 13, he spoke at an ActionAid side event about One Acre Fund's partnership with the Rwandan government's "LWH" project.

August 2011: One Acre Fund Farmers Help Feed the Region

Two op-eds, one in The National (UAE), and one in The Standard (Kenya), discuss the famine in southern Somalia, and why organizations like One Acre Fund can help prevent future famines. 

July 2011: ActionAid Field Report Features One Acre Fund

One Acre Fund is partnering with the Rwandan government on its land husbandry, water harvesting, and hillside irrigation (LWH) project in Karongi District. The LWH project is funded by the Global Agriculture and Food Security Fund, an innovative new mechanism for funding large-scale agriculture projects. A recent field report from ActionAid, an advocacy NGO, looks at the project's implementation and discusses One Acre Fund's role in serving smallholder farmers.

June 2011: Cracking the Nut Conference

One Acre Fund's director of development, Tony Kalm, spoke at the Cracking the Nut conference in Washington, DC on June 20. The conference brought together agriculture and rural finance policymakers, development practitioners, banks, and investors to discuss how to solve some of the challenges of agriculture finance.

June 2011: One Acre Fund Wins FT/IFC Sustainable Finance Award

One Acre Fund is the proud recipient of the FT/IFC Sustainable Finance Award for Achievement in Basic Needs Financing. The awards attracted 187 entries from 161 institutions in 61 countries. The basic needs financing award is a tremendous validation of One Acre Fund's model from some of the preeminent thought leaders in the banking world.

May 2011: Shaking Up Global Development

One Acre Fund is honored to be named one of the "five most exciting innovators shaking up global development" by Devex. In the last five years, we've grown to reach more than 55,000 smallholder farmers with our two innovations: a complete service model, and deep rural distribution. We plan to innovate our way to 1 million farmers in the next eight years.

May 2011: The Stanford Social Innovation Review Reports on One Acre Fund

The summer issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review includes a "What Works" feature article about One Acre Fund. The article discusses how we have focused on scaling, the importance of staffing the organization from the communities where we work, and our approach to innovation. Click here to download and read the full article.

April 2011: One Acre Fund Included in The New Harvest

One Acre Fund is included in The New Harvest: Agriculture Innovation in Africa. The book, written by Harvard Professor Calestous Juma, is a trenchant assessment of how sub-Saharan Africa can increase its agriculture production.  One Acre Fund is proud to be included in the social enterpreneurship section of the book. Click here to read more about the book.

January 2011: One Acre Fund Included in State of the World 2011

One Acre Fund is included in the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet. The book is a great resource for anyone who is interested in agriculture development in Africa, and One Acre Fund is proud to be included among the many innovations in the book. Click here to download and read the book excerpt on One Acre Fund.