published: June 2025, updated: August 2026
Better harvests.
Stronger families.
A resilient future.
One Acre Fund is a social enterprise and agricultural service provider that supports smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to build resilient communities. The project aims to increase farm productivity, household income and to improve food security for 32.980 households.
Approach
One Acre Fund’s approach integrates trainings for improved coffee management, marketing of fertilizer, agricultural tools, and additional cash crops, as well as agroforestry. The project targets smallholder coffee farmers in coffee growing regions in Western Uganda.
Project activities include:
- Training farmers in climate-smart agricultural practices for coffee cultivation
- Access to high-quality coffee inputs, seeds and seedlings for selected cash crops, and trees
- Facilitation of improved market linkages
- Saving schemes for the acquisition of inputs
The project aims for the following impact:
- $70/year increase in gross profits from coffee for 2-year participants
- $30/year increase in gross profits from coffee for 1-year participants
- $20/year increase in gross profits from chia production for adopters
- Reduced food security through a reduced score on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale for project participants
- Increased farmer climate resilience through tree planting
EVALUATION & LEARNING
The project is externally evaluated by the research firm Laterite via a quasi-experimental design (Difference in Difference) with matching at parish level.
The evaluation intends to address the following questions:
- Causal effects: What are the short- and medium-term effects on recommended agricultural practices, coffee and chia production, coffee prices, and income for participants?
- Mechanisms of change: How does the project achieve these changes, and which components are most crucial for success?
- Equity of benefits: Will all household members benefit equally from the project’s effects?
- Negative consequences: Does the project have any negative impacts on participants or target communities?
Projected Return – Model Explanation
The forecast SROI of 7.9 (range: 2.8 – 8.9) draws on OAF’s own impact reports and models as well as project-specific baseline data collected by Laterite.
The assumptions that most strongly influence the SROI are coffee productivity increase, tree survival rates for macadamia and agroforestry trees, and coffee price development — all subject to considerable uncertainty at this stage.
Midline results are expected in October 2026 and endline results in 2028, providing independent checks on the forecast.
All model figures represent present value over 10 years, discounted at 10%, deflated to 2021 EUR.
Read more about our SROI methodology here.
RESOURCES
Interested to learn more? Explore latest evaluation reports.