Crop Diversity

NSHIMA - The Zambian staple food! A thick porridge or polenta-like food made from corn flour, it is part of almost every meal. Eaten with your fingers, nshima is served with side dishes known locally as "relish".  It is as much a part of the Zambian diet as bread is to the American table! Maize is therefore the most commonly farmed crop in the Luangwa Valley. The average farm plot can only grow maize without chemicals for a few years before the land is leached of nitrogen and no longer productive. Much of the Luangwa Valley is ill suited for maize, being too wet or too dry much of the year, yet prior to COMACO most village farmers persisted in their failed attempts to coax maize to grow, growing poorer by the year.

COMACO is encouraging the growth of alternative crops – focused on crops that can be eaten, rather than cash crops that sell for small profits and can’t be used to meet family food needs. Crops being introduced by COMACO include groundnuts, rice, soybeans, green beans, cowpeas, velvet beans, cassava and sweet potatoes. All of these crops have been carefully and individually selected for their suitability to local growing environments, storage capacity, commercial viability and ease of propagation.

Watch COMACO's Rice Harvesting video! Shows some of the challenges faced by COMACO and rural farmers in Zambia, along with COAMCO's rural infrastructure solution and some real life stories.

Some of these crops are chosen for use in rotational planting, others because they are suited to the locale of specific farms, and others yet to provide the crop diversity needed to withstand the whims of Mother Nature. Many of the crops introduced represent new and improved versions of old familiar foods – such as the new species of sweet potato, which has the added benefit of being self-propagating. While traditional cassava is thought of as a protein-poor plant needing much processing to remove toxins, COMACO’s newly introduced “sweet cassava” is linamarin-free and can even be eaten raw! Cassava requires little maintenance, can stay in the ground until needed and propagates from cuttings. During the 2006 floods, many farmers maize and bean crops were washed away. Famine looked imminent. It was cassava that saved the day – tubers were harvested to eat while stalks were saved and replanted to restore the fields for future yields.

Crops such as ground nuts and soya beans have both commerical return and farming dividends. Byreturning much needed nitrogen into the soil, these crops not only sell consistently well, but also improve the following year's maize yield as well - an outcome appreciated by local farmers and their families. Soya bean meal is used for both IT'S WILD! Yummy Soy, and is also encoporated in "HEPS" - high energy protien source that is especially useful in the hospital treatment of HIV+ patients.  Rice farming is also providing one of the fastest growing commercial benefits to local farmers - aided by the popularity of COMACO's IT'S WILD! brand rice, sold throughout Zambia in both brown and white varieties. Rice is well suited for periods of extended high water and is also a popular staple for Zambians, being useful as porridge for infants and as rice-water for rehydration solution.

COMACO currently makes seeds and starts for these improved crop varieties available to member farmers at the local CTC’s. Extension officers also teach seed saving and plant propagation, enabling local farmers to be self-sustaining.