Advancing Agricultural Output
Acumen Fund's investments in the agriculture sector serve to better the lives of poor farmer families by improving smallholder farmers’ access to better agricultural inputs and equipment.
Worldwide, as many as 800 million of the extremely poor live in rural areas, and most of them are smallholder farmers. While landholdings vary by region, a smallholder farmer family typically depends on the production of less than two acres of land. And their landholdings are shrinking, inducing a strain on productivity and agricultural output.
In a sector where agricultural innovations have tripled the world’s grain production since 1950, smallholder farmers lacking access to technologies and quality inputs has resulted in major social consequences. Smallholders generate poor quality products at low yields. Their income stagnates, their nutrition suffers, and family life is disrupted by seasonal migrations imposed by their reliance on wage labor.
The lack of access of several hundred million smallholder farmers to modern agricultural methods also creates serious environmental stress. Inefficient use of fertilizers generates considerable amount of pollution, and farmers relying on traditional methods of flood irrigation extract excessive amounts of water.
Our Focus Areas
Our investments in the agriculture sector serve to better the lives of poor farmer families by improving smallholder farmers’ access to better agricultural inputs and equipment.
Supply Chain: developing cost-efficient manufacturing systems
and efficient distributions of affordable agricultural products and
services to reach the people who need them most: smallholder farmers.
Innovative Financing Solutions: expanding access to better
agricultural tools through innovative financing vehicles, from investments in enterprises at different points
in the supply chain, to credit facilities for local distributors and
retailers.
Innovative Agricultural Products and Services: advancing a set of promising and affordable technologies, such as the drip irrigation system that optimizes water productivity and increases agricultural growth production, which will enable smallholder farmers to generate quality products at higher yields.
Learn more about some of the businesses in our Agriculture Portfolio that are leading the way to help solve these challenges.