Zambia

For more than a decade, we’ve partnered with an outstanding non-profit Zambian company to support conservation farming and save precious wildlife. As an alternative livelihood to poaching, Conservation for Community Markets (COMACO) partners with traditional leaders, communities, and farmer cooperatives to provide support, skills and a market for farmers’ products.

COMACO is providing our Lifeplayer MP3s and Prime radios to deliver information on conservation farming, wildlife preservation, market prices, climate adaption strategies and much more. The Farm Talk programme is broadcast 3 times a week on a community radio station, Breeze FM. Currently, there are more than 250,000 COMACO-registered farmers in the Eastern Province. If their smallholder farms were combined, it would be the largest farm in Zambia. That gives an idea of the scale at which they work.

How Farmers are Turning from Poaching

For nearly 20 years, COMACO’s efforts have continued to expand across Zambia’s vast Luangwa Valley. This region is under threat from illegal wildlife poaching and deforestation, endangering some of the largest elephant and carnivore populations in Southern Africa. Previously, many farmers poached to supplement their incomes. To date, COMACO have facilitated the surrender of more than 2,800 firearms and 90,000 snares by these farmers, significantly curbing wildlife crime. Moreover, numerous arrests of wildlife criminals have been reported by COMACO farmers.

Farm Talk Radio and Breeze FM

Access to information is the key to raising farmer incomes. Farm Talk is a weekly farming radio show which is broadcast in the local language, Nyanja, on Chipata-based Breeze FM. Farm Talk radio programmes are central to COMACO’s solution of teaching small-scale farmers how to farm sustainably and adopt sustainable conservation methods.

If farmers are able to generate enough income from farming consistently, they stop poaching and other environmentally destructive practices such as charcoal production. COMACO buys crops from their registered farmers at slightly above market rates. Many crops are then processed and sold in Zambian supermarkets under the It’s wild brand. Premium products include peanut butter, rice, dried mangoes, honey and soy. We think they’re delicious!

 

A Sustainable Future for the Luangwa Valley

COMACO-registered farmers are experiencing the positive impact of farming sustainably. Poaching has been abandoned as a livelihood and numbers of wildlife species, like elephants, are increasing. Providing Lifeplayer MP3 units will extend Farm Talk’s reach in areas with poor FM reception. This enables COMACO to scale their skills training and education programmes, and ensure not only the ecological health of the Luangwa Valley, but provide sustainable, secure incomes for the people living there.

 

Lifeline’s radios are making a profound and positive impact on our farmer groups as they build on an existing deep radio culture. They help us ensure that all farmers hear and learn the same information to boost their incomes and alleviate hunger.

Dale Lewis
Founder and President, COMACO, Zambia

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