Helping farmers, one acre at a time

Until just before he graduated in 2000 with a B.A. in economics and sociology from Northwestern University, Matthew Forti figured his next step in life was a traditional business career—in finance, for example.

And for the next four years, it was. He worked as a consultant at Marakon Associates, a management consulting firm, before heading back to Northwestern to get his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management in 2004.

But then his friend, Andrew Youn, had an idea. Youn had traveled to Kenya and met two farmers: one successful and one not. He realized that the difference between the women’s fortunes was quite basic: seed, fertilizer, and training.

And thus, in collaboration with Forti, One Acre Fund was created.

It was an appropriate time. By the early 2000s, social entrepreneurship – the idea that business principles could be applied to major social problems – had really taken hold. One Acre Fund enables farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania (with additional small pilots in Uganda and Malawi) to increase their crop yields as a way to escape hunger and poverty. “I got really excited,” he said. “I could use those business skills to do good in the world.”

Sub-Saharan nations have arid land, making it difficult to grow crops. One Acre Fund provides the farmers with higher quality seed and fertilizer than they’d otherwise have access to, as well as training for composting, harvesting, and seeding. Then, once the crops were grown, One Acre Fund helped the farmers profit from them.

The ramifications are enormous, as 70 percent of the world’s poor are farmers, according to Forti.

“So if you can make farmers more productive, it’s a big leverage point in the fight against global poverty,” he said. The farmers’ increased profits can be used for housing, health, and education for their children.

And that, said Forti, “is why we exist.”

For Forti and the Fund, the proverb “Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime” is reality. Kindness is more than being polite. It’s lifting others up in ways like the fund does.

Crucially, One Acre Fund doesn’t give cash loans. Instead, they’re loaning the farmer the seeds, the fertilizer, and other products. This ensures that “the microfinance is actually being put into the ground.” By treating the farmers as customers and clients, rather than charity cases, the Fund gives them value and dignity.

By March 2006, One Acre Fund had begun a pilot program with 40 farmers in Kenya, who received seed, fertilizer, and training on credit. By the end of 2007, One Acre Fund had a staff of 60 and had partnered with 600 farmers. It was a success. Today, Forti said, there are about 3,200 staffers: 3,000 African staff and about 200 expatriate staff.

Forti, One Acre Fund’s first board chairman, had taken a slight detour after graduation, during which he picked up considerable nonprofit experience. He’d been a manager at the Bridgespan Group, a 501(c)3. Forti is an outlier, as most people who go for their MBA don’t opt to go the nonprofit route.

But in 2013, Forti joined One Acre Fund as managing director, after serving as a volunteer for the organization since 2006. His work varies by the day. Sometimes he’s coordinating supporting functions to make sure One Acre Fund’s fields program has the resources it needs to flourish. Other days, he’s running the organization’s board here in the U.S. or attending a conference, speaking about the work and mission, and to develop partnerships with financial supporters.

Forti, unlike most of the staff, lives in the United States; 99 percent of the staff lives in Africa (We have 25 in the U.S. out of 3200). This, he says, is a significant reason for the success of the program: staffers live in the communities where they work, often as close as 200 meters from a farmer.

“We don’t parachute into a community, do some interviews, then leave,” he said.

One Acre Fund currently works with 280,000 farm families, with a goal of reaching a million annually by 2020.

For Forti, the work is personal: “What’s so inspiring about farmers is they’re doing backbreaking labor, 10-plus hours a day. They’re living in horrible conditions, and they’re food insecure for several months of the year. They can’t even grow enough to feed their children. And yet these farmers are so optimistic.”

“They believe in a better future,” he said. “They want to create a better life for their children.”

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