FSD Africa will support Acorn projects in the initial scale phase that aims to benefit around 3,000-5,000 small-scale farmers whilst Acorn has the ambition to reach 1 million farmers all over the globe following the scale-up.

Nairobi – 27 July 2022: FSD Africa and Rabobank ACORN / Rabo Foundation today launched their collaboration in helping small-scale farmers with their transition to Agroforestry, a sustainable and climate resilient farming practice.

Acorn – Agroforestry Carbon removal units for the Organic Restoration of Nature – is a program being developed by Rabobank to unlock the international carbon market for smallholder farmers in the developing world. It aims to help farmers transition to agroforestry at scale and monetize the carbon stored in the trees planted through Acorn’s global transparent and technology-enabled marketplace for carbon sequestration. The collaboration will focus on kick-starting new small-scale farmers’ agroforestry projects in Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia.

FSD Africa together with Rabo Foundation will provide finance to the small-scale farmers to help them transition to sustainable agroforestry. The local implementation partners will collect the farmer data and onboard the farmers onto the Acorn platform. They will then be able to sell carbon removal units (CRU) to corporate off-takers through Acorn’s technology-enabled marketplace. The proceeds of the CRUs will be used to pay back the loan. For FSD Africa as the financier, testing this innovative finance structure will be an important outcome of this first scale phase.

We are proud to acknowledge that this program will contribute to 8 out of 17 UN SDGs, including those related to poverty reduction, food security, reduction of pollution, economic productivity, resilience, sustainability of forests and capital mobilization.
Mark Napier, CEO – FSD Africa