The story of the two cooperatives is not just a story, but a story of change and inspiration.

At a time when every small-scale farmer was associated with government cooperatives for the sole purpose of benefiting from the well known Farmer Input Support Program (FISP), a new dimension of self- sustaining and for profit-making cooperative was born. This, of course, was a new initiative that could be embraced only by those willing to take risks.

The story of the two cooperatives can be traced back to the year 2006 when Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) saw the need to engage the community in Magodi chiefdom on the importance of conservation and wildlife protection.

Alfred Kanthangwa Kumwenda – Co-op Secretary for Eme and Kajilime

This inspirational story is best told by Alfred Kanthangwa Kumwenda, the secretary for the two cooperatives. Alfred says when COMACO introduced the idea of conservation-focused cooperatives to the community in Magodi in 2006, he and others immediately took up the challenge of trying something new from the usual.

“We formed producer groups of between fifteen and twenty members with the focus of practising conservation farming. The purpose of having many members was to ensure that work was made light” Alfred said. He added that most people in the community spent a lot of time hiring out labour to other farmers who were more successful in exchange for a bucket or two of maize. “We formed producer groups of between fifteen and twenty members with the focus of practicing conservation farming. The purpose of having many members was to ensure that work was made light”

After realizing that working in other people’s fields instead of their own, resulted in the loss of precious man-hours, COMACO moved in to empower cooperative members with 50kgs of maize, 2.5 liters of cooking oil, 5kgs of cowpeas and 2kgs of salt as a way of encouraging cooperative members to work in their own fields. This, of course, was a shot in the arm as most members were empowered with food thereby increasing production hours in their fields. “Since all the producer groups had members ranging from fifteen to twenty,” explained Alfred, “we came up with a strategy where all members agreed to work in each member’s field then move to the next. In this way, we managed to work in four or more fields per day. This system gave us less time of work and increased the bond among cooperative members.”

As always, where ever humans are, challenges emerge. Some cooperative members became used to the food handouts from COMACO and appeared to expect that this support would continue. Consequently, it took a lot of sensitization of such members until these perceptions could finally be brought to a halt. Yet most members appeared to expect that COMACO would provide them with fertilizer as was the case under the Farm Input Support Programme (FISP). Instead, said Alfred, COMACO came with messages of change –a change that would transform people from conventional farmers to conservational farmers. “We were taught about the need to stop bush burning and charcoal production, and instead to take up crop-rotation and the conservation of wildlife.

In 2012, COMACO gave the cooperative a sum of 5000 Kwacha, to conduct training for the transformed charcoal producers and poachers. Thirty-three people were trained, among them a female Jester Mbale whose late husband was a known poacher in the area. Other poachers had gone into the habit of borrowing her late husband’s gun to use in their poaching activities. “These people were trained in different skills such as carpentry, poultry, and vegetable gardening” Alfred narrated. The efforts and negotiations to persuade poachers to surrender their guns and charcoal producers to stop their trend continued, slowly but surely brought the lost vegetation and wildlife back.

Having put up all those efforts in making sure that bad habits towards the environment are eradicated, Magodi chiefdom saw the stoppage of charcoal production, an increase in wildlife populations, vegetation regrowth and forest cover.

This humble story initiated by COMACO caught the attention of other organizations such as the World Bank and a REDD+ and SALM carbon project was born Through this project, the two cooperatives and the established Community Forest Management Groups (CFMG), received a staggering amount of 600,000 Kwacha from carbon units earnings because of their valuable conservation works in the chiefdom. “We could not believe it but we soon realized that hard work pays off. Though we were surprised with the turn of events, we did not take long to accept the fact that working together for the common good attracts good things too.”

The money that was received from REDD+ and SALM (Sustainable Agriculture & Land use Management) pushed the vision of the two cooperatives towards becoming self-sustaining business entities. Two hammer mills were purchased and installed in Kulikuli area, a 1.5-ton community truck was purchased, Chambuzi School was painted and a teacher’s house was plastered and painted as well.

At Munyakwa School, two modern toilets were constructed from the same money. These developments in the community conservation area meant more care towards conservation efforts in Magodi chiefdom. “We realized that we further needed to lighten work for our members, so we decided to buy twelve heads of cattle and six rippers. Two heads of cattle plus a ripper were given to six VAGs (Village Area Groups) to maximize on minimum tillage and conservation practices”. A confident Alfred shared.

Before long, another 30,200 Kwacha was pumped into the two cooperatives from the same  World Bank carbon project. This money was meant for the re-enforcement of conservation efforts, promotion of agroforestry and the maximization of minimum tillage. After the implementation of the above programs, the two cooperatives decided to invest the remainder of the money in the poultry business to enhance even more self- sustainability.

In addition to their poultry businesses, the two cooperatives also have one tuck shop apiece, including hammer mill and transportation businesses. Other than that, COMACO gives the two cooperatives a reasonably sound commission as they take part in crop buying in the community on behalf of the organization. Since they run two hammer mills and one solar hammer mill which they acquired from the government on loan, they sell maize bran to the members of the community that keep pigs thereby leaving no stone unturned in income generation opportunities.

Alfred is not shy to say that the two cooperatives have reasonably fat bank accounts because they have realized that they are business entities and not platforms for handouts. “We are in business and not here solely for handouts like most cooperatives that only become active during fertilizer distribution. We run our business throughout the year, we are a company based in the rural countryside and our bank account is reasonably fat” boasts Alfred. “We are not an ordinary story, we are a story of change and hope,” said Alfred.

There have been notable increases in sightings of wildlife, including elephants

To cement the fact that the community in Magodi chiefdom is doing something right, the area has seen increased traffic of game animals as almost zero poaching is to be attained. Last December, the area saw eighteen elephants roaming around and countless impala has been spotted all over the chiefdom. Alfred says many opportunities await the two companies, as he fondly refers to the cooperatives where he is the secretary.

Last year, COMACO infused 12,400 Kwacha into the two cooperatives earned from conservation dividend funds, thanks to the communities compliance in all areas of conservation practices. This year (2019), the two cooperatives have already earned 14, 000 Kwacha as carbon credit payment from the World Bank because of high compliance scores.

Many plans lie ahead of the two companies in the rural setup. Alfred said the cooperatives aim to create job opportunities for youths who have completed school. Some of these youths will be trained in life skills that will give them income and develop the area. In addition to poultry rearing, Alfred revealed that plans are also underway to construct a training centre, build a guest house and establish a breeding centre for pigs, goats, and cattle and intentions to make the chiefdom an exemplary conservation-hub in Zambia.

Alfred advises other cooperatives to stop over-dependence on handouts from the government but be business-oriented, remain united and focused as it is what has made Eme COMACO and Kajilime cooperatives to flourish to self-sustainability. “We are not an ordinary story, we are a story of change and hope,” said Alfred.

On one such day, the rattle of automatic gunfire laid waste to a family of 15 elephants across the Luangwa River from where I lived. Their screams were human-like as they anguished their final minutes. I listened helplessly, unable to defend the animals I had come to know. It was hard to understand how humans could inflict such destruction and suffering.

Some days later I was given a chance to meet the same gang of elephant poachers who had been arrested by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Service scouts. They were handcuffed and sitting on the ground when I arrived to interview them. I was not expecting the revelation.

Some years later I met a grain trader who told me how he had become rich. His secret was simple, start buying from farmers soon after the harvest because that is when they are the poorest and you can buy at very low prices to make good profits.

The scenario did not bode well for elephants or wildlife in general. Both legal and illegal markets took advantage of the prevailing ignorance and poverty that afflicted so many small-scale farmers. For many poor farmers, law enforcement was an infraction and threat to their livelihoods.

COMACO is an accumulation of these lessons that allowed us to ask the right question. Could we find the markets and business approach to make conservation profitable enough for farmers to stop the needless loss of wildlife and habitat and still run as a sustainable enterprise? We challenged conventional wisdom in 2003 with our first product, Chama Rice, sold under the brand It’s Wild! and grown by farmers who lived with elephants, often down the barrel of a gun. We quadrupled the price that farmers were previously earning from a local trader and we asked them to surrender their guns in return.

Since then, over 1763 firearms have been surrendered. Today we’re selling 17 products all coming from small-scale farmers, many of whom have abandoned their old ways of poaching and charcoal-making. Improved farming skills and better markets have replaced the need for poaching. Farming communities, unlike before, are organized into cooperatives and have joined COMACO as business partners to bring their food surplus to market and help market the It’s Wild! brand by incorporating their stories of how they’re making conservation work for them.

This year we’ll be buying over 11,000 tons of farm produce from over 30,000 farmers with It’s Wild! sales growing each year. Equally important, we’re operating in the black and have opened markets in South Africa, Botswana and soon the USA.

It has been a journey made possible by people who believed in our mission and the fight in our stomach to make it succeed. They helped with their money in an untested model. It is their story I find so remarkable and critical to the trajectory we’re on today. They know who they are and I hope they will read this blog to understand and appreciate what they have helped to achieve for Africa, its farmers and its wildlife. COMACO has given them a chance to invest in conservation and realize their required returns on investment. For many, the impact of more wildlife and forests or families with more food and income was sufficient to meet their investment goals. For others, the investment has been paid back with interest and for others, the interest was returned to allow COMACO to sustain our annual conservation dividend payment when communities meet a set of conservation standards.

Through these investments, COMACO has been able to work on a scale where only conservation can succeed by supporting not a few hundred families but hundreds of thousands across an entire ecosystem like Luangwa Valley. The collaboration with our investors and grantors have created financing mechanisms and strategies that made this scale possible, created a revolving fund for crop buying that reduces our debt burden, established an organization that has made management and farmer operate as one, and have turned every label on a product we sell into a billboard to help tell our story to markets far and wide.

With backing from the Zambian government, COMACO is expanding its operations to support other landscapes and communities mired in poverty with markets that can deliver the needed solutions for conservation. It will take continued investments in more beehives, more training manuals and skills training, more community protected forests and wildlife habitat, more warehouses, better processing equipment, and so much more.

We hope to make It’s Wild! the African brand for conservation that one day will source from many hundreds of thousands of farmers ready to conserve for the markets ready to pay. This is why we will keep Africa’s elephants. We’ve seen it work in Luangwa Valley and it can work elsewhere too. I’d like to invite you to contact me directly if you would be interested in helping make this journey possible with your support. | www.linkedin.com/