I pulled up to a fuel station recently and began chatting with the attendant whose name was Eddie. I asked where he was originally from and his reply was Katete.
“I know Katete well,” I said. “It is one of the areas where COMACO works. Why did you leave?”
“The soil is dead,” was his reply. “No nutrients. Fertilizers are too expensive for a poor farmer like me and without it, I could not produce enough to support my family, so I came to Lusaka to find work,” Eddie is one of the lucky ones. He found a job, though one that keeps him standing and breathing diesel fumes all day.
Eddie is not alone. Many have abandoned a life of farming to face a hard and uncertain future in the city. Not all shift to urban centers, however. Many farmers clear nearby forests to access fertile soils. Some move further and find themselves in conflict with wildlife near one of Zambia’s national parks. In desperation, some resort to poaching, and a valued resource slowly diminishes.
People, wildlife, forests, and ultimately the entire country, suffer when farming practices do not restore and recycle nutrients in the soil. We know that continued use of chemical fertilizers is not the answer and can damage soils. With so much knowledge about how to keep soils healthy by adopting more natural, lower-cost farming practices, why haven’t more farmers adopted them?
Perhaps the answer is that it takes a committed partner to make the investment to help farmers adopt the right practices and provide the market incentives for staying committed to them. Such partners seem rare in Zambia.
COMACO is playing that role with its 17 years of lessons and know-how. Unfortunately, it did not come soon enough in Katete to help Eddie, I explained to him how our farming system works without fertilizer and how market prices supported by our It’s Wild! brand gives farmers a better life by staying sedentary, managing soil health, improve crop yields, and increase their income.
Eddie listened forlornly, realizing perhaps the better life he had wanted for his family and sacrificed to pump fuel instead was now gone forever. I encouraged him to go back and join a COMACO cooperative. As I drove off leaving him in my rear-view mirror, I wondered what quality of life Eddie would lead.
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