Appropriate Technologies

Appropriate Technologies

1) Conservation Farming (CF) is one of COMACO's major achievements. Over 20,000 farmers are using this technology throughout the Luangwa Valley ecosystem. It is based on a combination of mulching, composting and using potholes as continuous planting stations to build up soil fertility, resulting in significantly improved crop yields. By improving rainwater retention, it reduces the effects of droughts. Previously, farmers were restricted to the fertile alluvial floods but have increasingly become exposed to crop loss from the effects of floods. With conservation farming, farmers can maintain good yields on higher ground and avoid the risks of floods. The pictures below illustrate the basic steps of conservation farming.

Farmers who once understood little about soil management and how to increase yields with minimal increase in labor are learning the value of conservation farming to food security and added income. By applying improved farming practices, families can reduce weeding and avoid having to clear new land and increase risks of conflict with wild animals.

The practice uses fixed pot holes that are used in successive years to plant seeds. Each year, compost is added to improve soil structure and fertility. Repeated use of mulch also protects the soil and adds increased organic matter and microbial life to the soil. Over time, with consistent weeding and use of mulch, the need to weed decreases, which saves the farmer appreciable time and labor. Studies by COMACO show that conservation farming can improve maize yields by about 7%.

Continued research by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and its partners, most notably Cornell University, is examining ways to improve the quality of compost on different soil types. As the quality of compost improves, WCS hopes to show the added value of living with wildlife, which provides a major component to the formula for making compost. Another important value of conservation farming to wildlife is that farmers realize the importance of not burning their fields after harvest, since much of the crop residues are used for mulch and for blocking the regeneration of weeds. By reducing the incidence of fires, surrounding areas are spared the effects of fire and wildlife habitat remains less disturbed and more productive. BACK TO TOP

2) Frame hives and bee-keeping: Thousands of COMACO farmers are finding an important added income honeyprocess from keeping bees while also keeping their trees safe from fire and charcoal makers. COMACO supports an aggressive outreach service to teach farmers ways to farm bees using frame hives, which can triple the yield from more traditional log hives. Frame hives also minimize the risk of disturbing hives and causing them to disperse.

Bee-keeping is a popular activity among reformed poachers who seek alternative sources of income to poaching and have become an important source of auxilliary trainers in their communities to encourage the formation of new honey producer groups. Producers are taught improved ways of managing their bee hives,managing their forests as apiaries for wild, organic honey, how to harvest without damaging the hive, and ways to grade and store honey for market. BACK TO TOP

3) Fish ponds: Introduced to promote food security and local sales within the community while providing an alternative to over-fishing wild fish populations, COMACO's fish farming program has proven a popular livelihood choice with over 150 ponds now under active management by fish farming producer groups. Some have succeeded in managing their fish ponds with their own fish hatchery to better sustain fingerlings after ponds are harvested. This is an fishpond exciting area of development and technology that promotes good rainwater management and contributes to improved bee farming when hives are kept nearby for year-round access to water and flowering plants. With the help of the Fisheries Department of the Zambian Government, COMACO has been able to provide detailed instruction to new producer groups on how to construct a fish pond, manage fish and ultimately develop their own hatchery to restock after harvesting.

wildfish market In order for fish farmers to realize the full economic value and advantage of fish farming versus river-caught wild fish, COMACO hopes to provide a reliable market for fresh farmed fish to urban buyers, particularly Lusaka. To justify the investment costs of freezing equipment and related transport requirements, COMACO is actively promoting the establishment of 300 new fish ponds in areas where over-fishing of rivers has depleted wild stock. As the supply of farmed fish also becomes more locally available, it is hoped the pressure on wildlife as well as wild fisheries will decline. BACK TO TOP

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wild fish sold at local market

4) Seed multiplication: Rural farmers with low income are unable to buy commercial seeds to improve their yield because of the cost and availability. Over the past years, this as resulted in great difficulties for local farmers to maintain high-yielding seed varieties to buffer the possible effects of a late drought, in which case it would be desirable to have an early maturing variety to combine with a normal maturing variety. In other instances, farmers seek new crops that are relatively easy to propagate while maintaining high yields over multiple years, such as soybeans and groundnuts.

COMACO extension staff work with farmers to identify crop varieties that are locally adapted and can sustain multiple-year quality yields by farmer-based seed management. To reach this level of sustainability and self-reliance, COMACO identifies those farmer groups proven to be reliable farmers and supports them with seeds for growing as seed crops for local distribution and sales at affordable local prices. To produce certifiable seeds, COMACO assists these groups to become certified seed producers the Department of Agriculture and also sends the seeds for viability testing at local Government testing centres. In this way COMACO improves opportunities for increased food security and a reliable harvest of agricultural commodities for trade with COMACO trading centres. BACK TO TOP

5) Composting and green manure: One of COMACO's more successful applications of appropriate technologies is household-based production of compost fertilizer. Over 10,000 households currently make compost annually to fertilize their crops, contributing to over 500,000 kg of added maize yield for family subsistence and increased food security. The compost is added to the individual pot hole planting stations as part of conservation farming, replacing the need for buying fertilizer and saving farmers well over $200,000 annually in fertilizer costs, if they were to buy commercial fertilizer. Farmers are generally too poor to buy fertilizer but with the technology of making their own from compost, local farmers now have the confidence to farm more seriously and not rely on snaring to make up for food shortfalls. In addition to compost, a growing number of farmers, well over 5000, have begun planting in their fields trees that add nitrogen to their soil, including Acacia albida and Gliricidia sepium, referred to as green manure.

Compost Making ? Compost Stake ? Using Compost

Compost pit ? Compost stake ? Using compost

6) Crop varieties: To promote crop diversification and to reduce risks of crop failure by relying on a single crop, COMACO helps to identify crop varieties ideally suited to local conditions and to local management of seed multiplication for next year's planting. In some case, COMACO carries out seed selection to improve and maintain a desired variety that also has high cash value under COMACO's markets. Currently COMACO is helping to promote with its own program of seed multiplication for an open-pollinated variety of soybeans that grow well on plateau soils, a rice variety that resists breaking when polishing and has a high commercial value because of its texture and taste, and an early maturing, open-pollinated variety of maize and sorghum that promotes food security as a back-up maize variety to the local maize variety, which takes longer to mature. BACK TO TOP

7) Cassava plantings: With increased concerns that rainfall patterns will become more irregular, causing increased risks of droughts and floods, COMACO recognized the need to introduce cassava on a large scale to give each household a food reserve. With their starchy tubers kept in the ground and edible leaves with high nutrient value, cassava is a potentially important way for households in Luangwa Valley to mitigate food shortages. Over the past 3 years COMACO has introduced 45 cassava nurseries to help propagate cassava cuttings for planting at the household level and to date has contributed to over 8 million cuttings for over 20,000 farmers in Luangwa Valley. BACK TO TOP

8) Poultry production initiative: Small-scale poultry keeping is an important co Chicken house - Mnkhanya

mponent of rural Zambian life. Poultry are a source of animal protein, a source of family income and serve functions within the traditional culture. Rural Zambians living around the Luangwa Valley typically keep between 10-15 free-range chickens for these purposes. However, poultry-keeping has not been a dependable source of food and income due to high mortality rates that can eradicate entire flocks. Improvement of poultry production would result in increased food security, thereby decreasing reliance on poaching and other harmful practices. Villagers could also possibly sell excess animals and eggs through the COMACO system.

Investigating the causes of poultry mortality was the first step in working towards the goal of improved production. In July-August 2006, meetings with poultry keepers were held in six of the seven chiefdoms surrounding the Mambwe Conservation Farmer and Trading Center, as well as in one chiefdom in the Lundazi area. The main causes of mortality were identified as:

1) infectious diseases such as fowlpox, salmonellosis, fowl cholera, and newcastle disease;
2) external and internal parasites;
3) predation from wildcats, snakes, birds, etc; and
4) lack of knowledge of proper husbandry techniques.

Of these, Newcastle Disease was determined to be a major cause of the high poultry mortality experienced yearly from October-December. This information was gathered by talking with farmers, observing poultry living conditions and performing necropsies on dying birds. In addition, a total of 522 farmers participated in training sessions that covered proper nutrition, housing, and aspects of disease management such as recognition and prevention. The Extension Supervisor and five of the local Extension Officers were also trained in a special session that reviewed the major nutritional, parasitic, and infectious diseases of poultry. The Extension Officers also learned post-mortem and fecal flotation procedures, enabling them to investigate disease outbreaks. All supplies and resources necessary for these techniques, as well as general references on poultry health and husbandry, remain at the Mambwe CTC.

Work is continuing with focus on the following areas: 1) the use of soy and rice processing by-products for nutritional supplementation; 2) improved housing to reduce predation; 3) thermo-tolerant Newcastle Disease virus vaccine use and sustainability; 4) improved communication between extension officers and Cornell?s College of Veterinary Medicine; and 5) implementation of systematic data collection to monitor effects of interventions. BACK TO TOP