Reducing Human Poverty and Hunger while Saving Wildlife and Ecosystems

Far off in a remote area of Zambia, called the Luangwa Valley, a new model for conservation is saving not only wildlife and habitat but reducing poverty and hunger among the many thousands of poor farmers who share this valley with elephants and other wildlife.

Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO)

COMACO is a novel, emerging company in Zambia that is pioneering an innovative way for making markets and conservation work together. It produces IT'S WILD!, a special brand of organic, value-added processed products that come from the farmers who live with wildlife.  Urban consumers buy these products and in doing so, pay for the cost of rewarding small-scale farmers for supporting conservation.  The idea that a company can work to improve the lives of poor farmers by supporting conservation may seem too good to be true. Far from it, it is happening and on a scale that is beginning to impress even the most skeptical!How does this new conservation and poverty reduction business model work?

COMACO targets poor, food insecure families - the people who are most likely to poach wildlife or burn forests for charcoal. COMACO member farmers are then organized into producer groups to promote a traditionally Zambian group committment to better agricultural practices. COMACO then provides training in a diversity of legal, income-generating skills focused on sustainable agriculture. Creating local depots within producer group areas provide market access to previously disenfranchised farmers who are finally able to receive market price for selling surplus grains. Regional trade centers provide reliable transfer of commodities to high paying urban markets, and act as training centers for ongoing learning. Finally, a formalized agreement with producer groups  to adhere to sustainable land use practices qualifies the farmer for conservation dividends that reward the farmer for taking a chance on this new approach.  

The skills they learn are liberating, giving them the knowledge to make organic fertilizer, diversify food crops, establish their own seed bank, and maintain a balance between farmland, forests and other natural resources. 

To support the full adoption of these skills, COMACO buys any surplus crops grown from member farmers at fair market prices and resells them as processed, value-added products branded under the name IT'S WILD!.  Critical to achieving food security, COMACO buys ONLY surpluses of those crops that are consumed as food and by increasing their market value, farmers commit more time to learn how to be more productive and thus more food secure.  Once a family has harvested and stored their crops, farmers are then able to determine how much surplus they have to sell to COMACO.  Having enough to eat, plus cash raised from improved harvests, reduces the need to go into the forest to hunt for meat and make charcoal for cash, preserving the ecosystem for tomorrow!

COMACO Puts ALL the Pieces Together!

COMACO operates through regional Conservation Trading Centers (CTCs) that convert large tonnages of raw commodities into finished products.  Located in town centers, each of COMACO’s six CTCs support crop purchases from participating  farmers at village-level storage facilities referred to as the community trading depots. Over 75 rural depots now bring market access to previously isolated and disenfranchised local rural farmers, making commerce a better option than poaching or charcoal-making for those living along-side Luangwa’s wildlife. Men and women from the over 30,000 COMACO farming families bring their surplus maize, beans, soybeans, rice, groundnuts and honey to their trading depot, where COMACO makes cash payments directly to the farmer.  COMACO trucks then take the raw commodities to the CTCs where food-processing facilities and trained staff take over, processing and packaging the finished IT'S WILD! products. COMACO’s head office provides the critical services of marketing and distributing IT'S WILD! products all over Zambia and into regional export markets, to generate the capital needed to succeed as a program.

Conservation Dividends Motivate Farmers to Conform to Land Friendly Farming Practices

Change is scary for us all - especially when you depend on your own efforts to eat! If participating farmers fully embrace the conservation guidelines they are taught, they receive a premium price for their farm commodities, as an end-of-the-year "conservation dividend". These conservation guidelines include such practices as using crop residues as mulch, restraining from burning crop residues which often contributes to fires into surrounding forests, using compost fertilizer to help rebuild soils for higher yields, and growing legume cover crops to control weeds and improve soils. Participants also pledge not to poach or make illegal charcoal while farming with COMACO. Validation of conservation compliance by visits from extension officers discourages cheating.  Additionally, farmers who are caught poaching lose access to COMACO’s trade benefits.  Farm communities who fail to demonstrate commitment to conservation can lose their partnership with COMACO.  For most, it not a risk worth taking. 

When consumers buy IT'S WILD! products, they know that they  are helping COMACO achieve its mission to reduce poverty and protect wildlife and habitat.  By receiving the conservation dividend, supported by profits from IT'S WILD! sales and from donations made by interested stakeholders, the farmer sees an added incentive to abandon poaching and adopt a farming practice that is not only good for Zambia's habitats but also keeps families food-secure and income-safe. The value of new farming methods are soon recognized, and that is a dividend in itself! 

Since its inception in 2003, COMACO has witnessed an unprecedented number of farmers surrendering their firearms and snares, once used to kill wild animals as way of compensating their poor farm yields.  Over 50,000 snares and 1800 firearms were removed from illegal use in this way, no one was arrested, and wildlife numbers are rebounding.  COMACO goes an additional step by investing in tourism.  By giving a 65% ownership share in own community-managed tourism camps, called IT'S WILD! Bushcamps for welcoming international visitors to witness successful protection of Zambia's wild spaces, community pride in their wildlife is becoming a commercial reward.

What Are the Key Factors in the Success of COMACO?
The success of the COMACO business model depends on good management, like any business.   More importantly, it prospers because of the people it inspires:  rural producers, who now grow crops the right way, COMACO's Zambian staff, whose hard work has brought a more ethical and giving company to the marketplace in Zambia, and to consumers who can now make their country better simply by buying IT'S WILD! 

COMACO is transformational! We bring a better life to poor people so they are able to educate and care for their children and stay free of activities harmful to their land and resources and their own health and well-being.

COMACO grew out of over 25 years of research led by the Wildlife Conservation Society.  To date, it remains committed to the success and long-term sustainability of the COMACO model as a hopeful pan-African solution to conservation.  Financing its continued growth expansion across a landscape of over 25,000 square miles, nearly the size of Malawi or the State of Connecticut, remains a real challenge, but Wildlife Conservation Society sees COMACO as a good investment for Africa where the company itself, operating as a non-profit company, is not only able to perpetuate itself from product sales but drives real economic spin-offs for poverty reduction, food security and conservation.