Member Profile: FARM-Africa

FARM-Africa's mission is to reduce poverty by enabling marginal African farmers, herders and forest dwellers to make sustainable improvements to their wellbeing by effectively managing renewable natural resources.

FARM-Africa works in some of the most drought-prone areas of eastern Africa, so promoting water conservation and providing access to clean, safe water are important parts of our work. Projects include educating farmers in drip-feed irrigation and other water conservation techniques, promoting the cultivation of drought-resistant crops, and constructing boreholes and pumps to provide safe drinking water for schools and communities.

FARM-Africa was 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.

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 Southern Sudan as well as continuing in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

Over the past twenty five years 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.