About us
We are a registered charity with a small office in the UK, a regional office in Nairobi and a country office in Addis Ababa. Over 90% of our staff are African, working directly with communities in eastern Africa.
We were founded in 1985 to help poor farmers and herders in Africa grow more food, keep their livestock healthy, make a basic living and manage their natural resources in a sustainable way.
We've proven that, with the right training and support, poor rural communities can identify and implement appropriate solutions to many of the key problems they face. Families are directly supported to help work themselves out of poverty through improved ways to manage their crops, livestock, forests and access to water.
With the experience we've gained over the past two and a half decades, we have pioneered new models of sustainable agriculture, livestock production and forest management. We increase our impact further by pushing for changes in policy that directly benefit poor communities.
As a specialist international non-governmental organisation (INGO) working in remote and resource-poor rural areas, we are placed at the forefront of agricultural development. Our supporters help us to transform thousands of lives each year.
Please click here to download our latest Annual Review.
Dr Babana Ahmadu, Director of the Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union Commission, praised our work:"The African Union Commission is highly impressed with the work of FARM-Africa. They have accomplished a great deal by strengthening the capacity of African farmers to address their numerous problems. FARM-Africa is contributing immensely towards improved food security through the introduction of innovations for increased crop production, improved livestock husbandry and new marketing strategies that ensure better prices for farmers." |
Our history
We were established in 1985 by Sir Michael Wood and David Campbell, who shared a vision of a prosperous rural Africa, identifying that ‘food is the best medicine' and that developing small scale agriculture is vital for effective, lasting and dignified solutions to rural poverty.
Our work started with nomadic pastoralists in the remote north of Kenya in 1987, expanding to Ethiopia in 1988. Initially our focus was on very poor widows and their children. We helped them by providing goats on credit (one of their goat's kids was returned to FARM-Africa and redistributed to another family). Access to animal healthcare meant the goats were healthy and producing plenty of nutritious milk. This led to similar projects in Kenya and Tanzania before we expanded into South Africa, initially working in townships in the Northern Cape and later supporting communities who had received land under the new government's land reform programme. Our work since then has spread to Uganda and South Sudan as well as continuing in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
Our approach
Before embarking on a new project, we spend a great deal of time listening to local people. Together, we work to overcome problems and develop new ways to help communities produce more food. We create a bridge between agricultural researchers and farmers, bringing them together to solve problems faced by poor rural communities.
We carefully record the lessons learnt from our projects so that we can pass on our findings in the form of models of good-practice to other African communities, development charities and governments. This means that when a project ends, the benefits continue long after we have moved on.
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Farming AfricaWith your support thousands of farmers, herders and forest dwellers are getting the help they need to effectively farm their land and manage their natural resources. |
