Sustainable Organic Agriculture Reaps Rewards for Farmers in Zambia

TWN Info Service on Sustainable Agriculture
29 September 2021
Third World Network
www.twn.my

 

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Sustainable Organic Agriculture Reaps Rewards for Farmers in Zambia

The Kasisi Agricultural Training Center outside Lusaka, Zambia, was set up in 1974 to promote Green Revolution technologies but found that the farmers needed more inputs for the same output and the land was becoming degraded. It shifted to sustainable organic agriculture and is now the premier sustainable agriculture training center in Zambia. Sustainable organic agriculture has proven to be much more resilient to pests and climate impacts and has improved livelihoods, diets and food security of farming households, as well as soil quality.

Farmers work with Kasisi extension agents to learn how to multiply seeds, bring small animals into the farm, compost manure, intercrop effectively, harvest and manage water, and control pests. There is a wide range of biological pest control practices. In a two-year project, Kasisi farmers, using improved open-pollinated maize seeds that they had multiplied themselves, got double the yields compared to conventional farmers using Green Revolution inputs, 2.4 tons/hectare compared to 1.2 tons/hectare. With input costs lower, their farms were far more profitable, and advantages increased over time as soil quality improved.

The farmers are more food-secure as well. It is common to find 12–15 different plants growing on one farm, spreading risks if one crop had a bad year. With more diversity on the farm, diets are also far healthier.

With best wishes,
Third World Network

____________________________________________________________________________

IN DIVERSITY THERE IS STRENGTH: MOVING BEYOND THE GREEN REVOLUTION IN ZAMBIA

Timothy A. Wise
13 July 2021
https://tawise01.medium.com/in-diversity-there-is-strength-moving-beyond-the-green-revolution-in-zambia-809e257997a4

Excerpted from Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food (New Press 2019), Chapter 5

At the Kasisi Agricultural Training Center outside Lusaka, the innovation pipeline was flowing freely, and Kasisi’s innovators had long since shifted their focus to organic agriculture. As Kasisi director Henrietta Kalinda explained, it hadn’t always been that way. The Jesuit center had been founded in 1974 to promote green revolution technologies, trying to avoid having Africa miss out on the agricultural boom. Kasisi would give young farm families plots of land and train them in the new high-input techniques, until they noticed something in the 1990s.

“We saw that they were not selling enough to pay for the inputs,” explained Kalinda. “And the land was becoming degraded — they needed to use more inputs for the same output.” Their farmers, like so many others, were running to stand still. Kasisi gradually made the shift to what Kalinda calls Sustainable Organic Agriculture. (“Organic can be unsustainable too,” she cautions.) Kasisi is now the premier sustainable agriculture training center in Zambia.

“We are finding that organic production works much better, it is much more resilient,” she added. “Farmers have done much better in erratic rains.”

We got a tour of the demonstration farm, which is used to experiment with new techniques, to train farmers in the transition to organic practices, and to support the center from the sale of produce. It is an impressive operation, featuring a large pivot irrigation system feeding a rich diversity of crops. The day we visited, farmers weeded plots of squash, amaranth, cow peas, and pigeon peas in the quarter of the crop circle devoted to training. Farmers pay a monthly fee for the irrigation but get to keep or sell the produce they grow. Farmers work with Kasisi extension agents to learn how to multiply seeds, bring small animals into the farm, compost manure, intercrop effectively, harvest and manage water, and control pests.

The wide range of biological pest control practices was mind-boggling. It included push-pull methods, with Desmodium legumes intercropped with maize naturally repelling pests while Napier grass borders drew them away from food crops.[1] Other natural insecticides included lemongrass, oregano, mint, and marigold. They teach farmers to create sprays from neem leaves, aloe, and even raw milk, which is a natural fungicide when mixed with manure. The scourge of maize farms in southern Africa in recent years is the fall armyworm, but Kalinda said their farmers had suffered little damage thanks to such practices.

The majority of the irrigated crop circle is devoted to cash crops, which pay for a significant share of the center’s operating costs. The day we were there, one large section was planted in soybeans to be used and sold as fodder for animals. The largest section was in barley, which Kasisi was growing on contract with a local beer-brewery. Kalinda said there still was no price premium in Zambia for organic produce, but there was definitely demand. Kasisi’s vegetables are coveted in Lusaka, and the center is supplying organic vegetables to two clinics for their own hospital’s cancer patients.

Gloria Musowa works with the Chongwe Organic Producers and Processors Association (CHOPPA), a group of 19 cooperatives a few miles from Kasisi where many Kasisi farmers put their training to work. Musowa said most farmers have between 12 and 35 acres of land, though some have just five. All farm organically, selling through the cooperative in local markets.

I had to ask about maize, though it was interesting that the crop seemed to have no privileged status at Kasisi. Gloria acknowledged that farmers very much wanted to grow maize, and the center helps them do so in a more sustainable and productive way, without chemical inputs. Is there a loss of productivity? Just the opposite, she said. In one two-year project they found that organic farmers using improved open-pollinated maize seeds that they had multiplied themselves got double the yields compared to conventional farmers using green revolution inputs, 2.4 tons/hectare compared to 1.2. With input costs lower, their farms were far more profitable. And those advantages increased over time as soil quality improved.

Needless to say, they were more food-secure as well. Gloria said it was common to find 12–15 different plants growing on one farm. “With more diversity on the farm, they can compensate for a bad year for maize,” she told me, and their diets were far healthier even in good years.

Kalinda was optimistic about changing government policies. “FISP is expensive to farmers and to the nation. It is not sustainable. Alternative systems are needed. Slowly the government is moving away from the FISP.” Kasisi is contributing to that. Some of their training and educational programs are with government extension agents who see first-hand what Kasisi saw in the 1990s. “They see their farmers are poorer at the end of the season using the current approach.”

“We are trying to force a revolution from below,” said Kalinda with a smile.

[1] “Push-Pull Technology for the Control of Stemborers and Striga Weed,” icipe, n.d., http://www.push-pull.net/push_pull_works.htm.

articles post