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New Group Uses Business Smarts To End Hunger

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Oct 28, 2006 4:57 pm US/Central

New Group Uses Business Smarts To End Hunger

One Acre Fund Helps Poor African Farmers Out Of Poverty

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CHICAGO (CBS) ― The "hungry season" isn't a concept most American children have to grow up knowing. But in Africa, hunger is a leading cause of death in children, and infant mortality rates there are among the highest in the world.

CBS 2's Mike Flannery reports that a group founded earlier this year is helping Africa's subsistence farmers feed their families year-round on small plots of land.

One Acre Fund is helping very poor farmers increase their crop yields, they say by 400 percent, making a lasting impact on the situation of these families.

"We work with the poorest of the poor families in rural Africa that other organizations leave behind. Our families go through a hunger season that's about three months long," said Andrew Youn, the group's founder.

Youn graduated from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in 2006. He began One Acre Fund's demonstration in January 2006 with 40 families in Kenya, many of which are headed by widows with young children.

The group has a very business-driven approach, according to Youn.

"It involves education, but also combines together with providing planting material and helping link them with markets. Simple things make a huge impact on yields," Youn said.

"Instead of giving food handouts, we take advantage of the fact that 80 percent of the world's hungry are farmers who are very capable of growing their own food. We give them the opportunity to quadruple their yields."

Most of those farm families till one acre or less of land, usually with ages-old and often inefficient methods. One Acre Fund has put together what they call a "market bundle" to empower groups of local farmers, offer farm education and give families the capital they need to get started.

According to their from Website One Acre Fund has field organizers works with existing women's self-help groups and help them choose high-value crops with greater profit potential than those they might have been growing.

Farmers are given high-grade commercial seed and fertilizers that are more effective.

One Acre Fund then acts as a bulk-selling agent, connecting farmers with markets and allowing them to sell their surplus crops for profits they say are two to three times what individual farmers would have gotten.

The group says a donation of $20 a month is enough to start a family of six in the program and, Youn hopes, help them out of poverty permanently.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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