Lifesaving Education and Assistance to Farmers (LEAF)
Funded by Archer Daniels Midland, this program has been building long-term resilience in Kenya, while helping families weather multiple once-in-a-lifetime challenges.
The challenge
Climate hazards and hunger go hand-in-hand. Poor rainfall and less predictable weather patterns reduce harvests, which leads to less food on the table, less product to sell at the market, and less feed for livestock.
This also fuels the cycle of poverty as it passes from one generation to the next: Children who suffer from chronic malnutrition are less likely to reach their full potential in life. In turn, they’re more likely to have children who suffer from chronic malnutrition.
It’s a terrible cycle that can lead to generations of consequence. So how do we break it?
A new LEAF
Concern has worked in Kenya since 2002. In that time, a core focus of our work has been on the country’s environmental issues, especially as they relate to small-scale and subsistence farmers, poverty, and malnutrition.
With funding from Illinois-based food ingredients company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Concern launched a program in both Kenya and neighboring Ethiopia (which faced many of the same challenges), designed to address hunger through two simultaneous actions:
- Provide frontline treatment to children and mothers suffering from acute malnutrition
- Prevent future cases of malnutrition through sustainable livelihoods that could guarantee long-term financial independence
Phase I of LEAF (Lifesaving Education and Assistance to Farmers) launched at the end of 2019. What made LEAF unique was this dual focus on a single issue, focusing on addressing current cases while laying the groundwork for a more sustainable future. It was an approach we designed in partnership with the communities themselves.
LEAF Phase I: Success despite the odds
LEAF began in October 2019 as a standalone, 18-month project in Kenya and Ethiopia. Despite facing one of the most challenging years in recent history, Concern and ADM achieved a high level of impact in both countries, directly reaching nearly 50,000 people (over 39,700 in Kenya and over 10,200 in Ethiopia), exceeding our initial goal of just under 48,000.
Despite lockdown measures, 82% of families living in participating communities were screened each month for malnutrition, and Concern was able to provide training, mentoring, group savings associations, and financial capital to encourage agribusiness development in the communities reached by LEAF. Most importantly, the program led to critical, life-saving results in 2020 because it provided a safety net to families who would have otherwise fallen through the cracks.
LEAF Phase II
In Kenya’s Tana River County, LEAF was not only effective, but also embraced by the communities and local governments. We saw after the first 18 months that this was a model with potential for scaling up, both within Tana River and to additional districts in Kenya.
Many of the Tana River families who participated in LEAF were pastoralists who were learning to farm for the first time after continued droughts made herding livestock a more difficult and less lucrative livelihood.
With the continued support from and partnership of ADM, we launched LEAF Phase II in September 2021. The goal with this expansion was to build on the momentum of LEAF, focusing on the adoption of nutrition-sensitive Climate Smart Agriculture and the continued prevention of malnutrition.
We expanded our focus in Tana River from just over 6,400 farmers in LEAF Phase I to a goal of reaching 10,000 farmers in Phase II. Building on LEAF I, LEAF II promoted broader adoption of climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive agriculture. The project also encouraged livelihood diversification, helping families better withstand climate and economic shocks while strengthening resilience and nutrition outcomes.
LEAF Phase III
The underlying goal of LEAF has always been to harness local experience and the power of agriculture and nutrition to both save lives today and enrich them tomorrow. Launched in 2024, LEAF III has served as the next step in achieving this goal, further strengthening family resources and well-being by helping them to recover from the drought emergency, build community resilience, and increase agricultural production and profitability.
Once again, we increased our reach, with a goal of working with 15,500 farmers. Once again, we surpassed this goal, working with nearly 15,750 across 28 communities in just 18 months. Factoring in their immediate family members, this means that LEAF III reached over 93,000 direct participants.
We strengthened mutual support in each of these 28 communities through the establishment of local farmers associations, providing shared field space (ranging from 18 to 250 acres) for program participants to practice together, sharing knowledge and encouragement.
We also supported 102 farmer groups (totalling more than 1,900 members, over 1,400 of whom were women) with agribusiness skills and support systems, including Village Savings and Loans Associations. Together, these groups have built over 6.8 million Kenyan shillings in savings (over $52,000), and are projected to reach 8.1 million shillings (over $62,000) by the end of the program.
And on to LEAF Phase IV…
Bolstered by this success, Concern and ADM have partnered again for LEAF IV, which launched in January 2026. This phase of the program aims to improve production in both quality and quantity of crops to meet both local demands and instil sustainable, climate-smart farming practices that meet international standards and markets.
Funded by
Archer Daniels Midland
Your support, their world
Programs like LEAF are made possible by Concern’s partners as well as our community of changemakers whose tax-deductible gifts help us to reach over 27 million people each year with life-changing and lifesaving work.
To learn more about how your organization can get involved in Concern’s work to make a lasting impact, please contact Katie Waller, Director of Strategic Partnerships, at [email protected].
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