Make a Difference
Solutions
|
IT'S WILD! From seed to shelf, COMACO’s products offer incentives to empower rural farming families with skills and markets that reward conservation. |
|
Poverty, illiteracy and hunger undermine opportunities to manage natural resources sustainably. The COMACO solution is a large-scale, farmer-based business that ties markets to food security and conservation across biodiversity-rich landscapes. COMACO puts all these pieces together in a way that is turning back the clock on years of environmental destruction in the Luangwa Valley, and at the center of it all is IT'S WILD!
From planting the seed to selling a finished, value-added product, COMACO and IT'S WILD! are there, working to provide rural farmers with the knowledge, skills, tools, opportunities and market support needed to move Zambian families out of poverty and keep hunger from once again driving them into the forests to kill animals and make charcoal.
The COMACO solution combines strategies that 1) target low income, food-impoverished families who rely on destructive uses of natural resources to get by and 2) offer skills, farm inputs, and markets if they reverse these practices. More details on each component of the COMACO program can be found below!
|
A network of locally accessible rural trading depots link farmers to a regional community trading centre (CTC). The CTC provides COAMCO member farmers with trading partners and access to fair market for their supply commodities. To learn more able the impact of a viable market, click here!
|
The marketing of the IT’S WILD! value-added, all natural, organic food products helps to generate the necessary revenue to provide farmers with a fair price for their surplus commodities. More than just a label, IT’S WILD! means a sustainable, value-focused, ecologically responsible business approach that’s Good For To learn more about how IT’S WILD! drives food security and conservation, click here! |
|
|
From administrative staff to extension officers, the face of COMACO is Zambian! The COMACO CTC’s and bushcamps are majority owned by the Zambian community. Community leaders, both elected and traditional, work together to develop their own sustainable land management plan. To learn how community involvement shapes the future of COMACO, click here! |
Ever hear the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket"? Relying on just one income source is a good way to make a farmer poor. Diversifying income sources means farmers have back-up income to see them through bad weather or to provide supplimental income. To learn more about how income diversification is reducing poverty in Luangwa Valley, click here! |
|
|
Continuous education is at the core of everything COMACO does! Poacher Transformation training, skills sharing to empower farmers in alternative earning strategies, improved conservation farming knowledge, even learning for family health and wellbeing takes place at Field Days! And that's not all! There's also the Field Extension team - taking the lessons farmside to include the entire COMACO household! To learn more about the extension staff, and the extensive educational opportunities provided by COMACO, click here! |
||
