Food security - A key conclusion from WCS' studies in Luangwa Valley is that poor subsistence farmers unable to grow enough food were often unable to contribute to the positive production of wildlife or other valuable natural resources in their area. Typically, such farmers relied on illegal use of wildlife to compensate their food shortage by exchanging game meat for food produced by more successful farmers. In areas where wildlife was not a common resources, families affected by hunger might generate extra income to buy food by converting trees to charcoal for sale. COMACO therefore made food security a pre-requisite for building community commitment to natural resource management.

Farmer group members learning
conservation farming.

Income and fair markets - From its long-term monitoring of rural livelihoods in Luangwa Valley, WCS concluded:

• Past agricultural markets generally offered low prices for producers, which discouraged farmers from developing better farming skills, thus contributing to low food crop production.
• Certain markets promoted particular cash crops, most notably cotton and tobacco, that raised rural income but proved potentially harmful to soils and indirectly harmful to wildlife and watershed resources from their impact on deforestation..
• Rural communities lacked the means or skills to negotiate better trade deals to serve their own livelihood needs or their interests in managing natural resources.

COMACO has addressed these problems by establishing regional trading centres that support producer groups with 1) increased options of marketable commodities, 2) improved trading services and 3) much improved producer prices linked to better land management practices. To view these results please click here - (Adobe .Pdf)

COMACO trading is centered around
producer depots, above rice;
below poultry

Alternative livelihoods - To promote more secure rural livelihoods that are in balance with local natural resources, COMACO supports efforts to provide producer groups with new or improved livelihood skills to help increase household sources of food and income. These efforts are directed at ways to better use natural resources without depleting them or improving ways to increase production of conventional sources of food and income and thus reduce pressure on more sensitive, renewable resources. In particular, COMACO has focused these efforts on poultry, goat rearing, fish farming, bee keeping, and dry season farming of fruits and vegetables. One particular group of people COMACO has worked closely with to help introduce these skills are local hunters who have a history of poaching wildlife. These efforts have also helped 113 poachers to surrender their firearms and take up entirely new livelihoods, as part of a COMACO activity called Poacher Transformation. To view these results please click here - (Adobe .Pdf)

Governance and leadership - COMACO is building a culture for conservation in a way that is helping shape entire communities with more effective and transparent leadership through efforts to help forge linkages between rural markets, agriculture and conservation. Community members are seeing evidence from COMACO that no one has to be poor or hungry if they are willing to learn new skills, work hard, and cooperate as a community to support their land use plans. Their leaders, both Traditional Rulers and elected members of Community Resources Boards, are working with COMACO to develop better markets and improved economic opportunities for their constituencies. They do this by serving on the Board for the Conservation Farmer Wildlife Produce Trading Center and by helping facilitate the formation of new producer groups and their compliance to land use plans. Rather than being driven by external markets, whose interests sometimes run counter to those of rural livelihoods or local resource protection, rural communities are now able to own shares in their own company and contribute to its growth and prosperity through markets that reward good land use practices. COMACO's approach to ownership, the right markets, trade agreements, partnerships and cooperation is building improved governance and leadership at the community level and a stronger foundation for rural development in Zambia.

Health and gender - HIV and malaria, as well as a host of other health problems, are crippling rural capacity to sustain basic food and income needs in Zambia. Markets that drive family members apart, especially where risks of disease infection increases, contribute to this problem, as do lack of economic empowerment for women and inadequate supply of drugs and health information. COMACO promotes markets that allow transactions to take place in the community so family members do not have to travel long distances to cash cheques and increase chances of disease infection in town centers. COMACO is also committed to working with rural health clinics to assist with the delivery of drugs by using its trading centre trucks as they make regular trips to collect farmer commodities from local trading depots. COMACO is especially interested in seeing markets develop that help women become more financially secure to help with child care in terms of nutrition and health care. Over 800 women are now participating in poultry and vegetable production groups and many are farmer group members and trade with their local depot to seek better prices for their farm commodities. Efforts to make these depots learning centres about a broader range of livelihood issues, including health care and disease prevention, are part of COMACO future workplans.

Extension support for women has
promoted such markets
as vegetables and poultry