One Acre Fund: Working for Positive Change

As we make the final preparations for The Fertilizer Institute’s World Fertilizer Conference in Boston next week, I am eagerly awaiting Monday’s keynote presentation by Andrew Youn, Senior Partner, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the One Acre Fund. One Acre is making a difference in an area of the world that so badly needs a better functioning agricultural system.

The Fund is an agriculture nonprofit that provides smallholder farmers in East Africa with the tools they need to achieve food security and in doing so, increase their incomes. The organization currently works with 75,000 farm families in Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi.

In 2006, fresh out of business school, Andrew founded the One Acre Fund in Kenya when he recognized that no other organization was providing poor farmers with a complete agricultural package. 

Fertilizer plays a critical role in world food production.  In fact, estimates are that our products are responsible for approximately 50 percent of the world’s food supply. During the conference, we will learn more about One Acre Fund, an organization that recognizes this fact in its efforts to dramatically improve peoples’ lives in Africa.

I think that you will find the One Acre story compelling, and I hope that our delegates will walk away from next week’s session with an understanding of the Fund’s mission and vision, as well as knowledge of the important role that fertilizers play in the Fund’s work to bring the tools of sustainable food production to an often neglected area of the world.