Economic Sustainability

COMACO: A Model for Rural Zambia

Conservatively, it is estimated that by FY 13/14, not less than 50% of the total cost of the Lusaka office will be supported by these three CTCs. (See chart below).

COMACO membership currently exceeds 30,000 group members, including many female members!

(See chart below)

COMACO sustainability requires long term participation of the area households.  The total number of producer group members currently exceeds 30,000 participating within 2000 producer groups (PG).  While the original farmer recruitment program used World Food Program maize to leverage farmers’ time to learn new farming skills, this ended for most COMACO areas in 2007; recruitment of new members today is almost entirely driven by desire for the access to improved commodity prices, low-cost input support, and livelihood skills training that COMACO provides.

Much of this recruitment takes place at local community trading depots with continued support and oversight by PG cooperatives (PGC) and COMACO field extension staff. [1] The graph also shows a significant participation by women-headed households – a group historically disenfranchised and prone to poverty.  In fact, as economically empowered women are more likely to send girl children to school, the growing percentage of women participants in COMACO may well be one of the most important factors in the achievement of COMACO’s many goals.

Recently, COMACO has collaborated with Zambian government departments in various ways to advance agricultural results and improved linkages with conservation.

1. Seed multiplication.  Under Zambian law, seeds can only be sold if produced by certified seed producers and if seeds meet required germination rates.  With the above training and on-going collaboration with Government, COMACO will be able to package and resell seeds through its depots in 2009.
2. Crop damage control from wildlife.   Happily, wildlife numbers have increased since the start of the COMACO program.  This achievement has brought with it the problem of increased conflicts between wildlife and rural farmers throughout Luangwa Valley.  COMACO and the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) are collaborating in ways to help reduce this conflict:

• development of an electric fencing policy to enforce management guidelines for the sale and effective use of electric fencing and provide an effective way for dealing with communities who contravene these guidelines, such vandalizing fencing wires for use as snares
• introduction of new, lower cost strategies for wildlife control through non-lethal use of firearms which blast course salt or chili pepper at large mammals, especially elephants.  Blasting of chili pepper works in a similar way as commercial pepper spray.  Both techniques were tested during the 2008-2009 wet season by a joint-initiative involving wildlife scouts and COMACO-transformed poachers and found to be highly effective.