By Sylvester Banda, Zambia
Following the climate shocks that hit Zambia during the 2023 and 2024 farming seasons, agricultural organizations are keeping up efforts to build long-term climate resilience.
The 2025 farming season may appear more stable, but experts warn conditions are not yet fully normal, with weather patterns still unpredictable.
Community Markets for Conservation, Cli-Smart Organic Farmers, and Zambian Women in Agricultural Research and Development are working with farmers to introduce practical solutions.
Their goal is to help small-scale farmers prepare for future shocks and protect their livelihoods in a changing climate.
Zambia’s agriculture sector is under pressure.
Un-predictable weather patterns, prolonged droughts, and poor soil health are making it harder for farmers especially smallholders to grow enough food, or earn a stable income.
With more than 70% of the population depending on farming for their livelihoods, the need for climate-resilient solutions is urgent, than ever.
One of the organizations helping farmers adapt is Community Markets for Conservation, better known as COMACO.
The group is working with over 350,000 small-scale farmers across Eastern, Muchinga, Northern, and Luapula provinces, helping them adopt conservation farming methods that rely on natural processes to improve soil fertility.
Kennedy Mafinge, COMACO’s Sales Manager, says farmers are planting Gliricidia sepium, a fast-growing tree that naturally restores nitrogen in the soil.
He explains that this reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, supports higher yields, and helps farmers withstand extreme weather conditions.
COMACO’s approach shows that sustainable farming can be both practical and scalable even in challenging environments.
“These farmers are farmers that grow their crop, the conservation way, where they don’t use any chemical fertilizers.
They rely on a certain plant that we call Grilicidia sepium plant. That plant is the one that helps them fix the nitrogen back into the soil. They are appreciating it because the yields are also good. In conserving, they conserve the plantation around the area. They don’t cut down trees, so we teach them to conserve that plantation” he said.
At the grassroots innovation level, Researcher and innovator, Sayowa Mubita who is Co-founder of Cli-Smart Organic Farmers, said her startup is empowering farmers through organic fertilizers and space-saving vertical garden systems.
In one case, she revealed that a farmer in Lusaka West increased their lettuce yield from just 500 to nearly 4,000 heads all in the same limited space thanking a vertical hydroponic system.
“Ours is to promote sustainable farming by advocating and producing organic inputs.This all is to enhance their resilience to climate change and we make organic fertilizers that not only offer nutrition to the soils, but also aid water retention amid, of course, the droughts that Zambia has been facing.
We also make vertical gardens that maximize on space” she said.
And from the research side, Dr. Nelly Phiri the chairperson of Zambian Women in Agricultural Research and Development, who also works with the Seed Control and Certification Institute, stressed the importance of using climate-adapted seed varieties.
She clarified that many of these seeds are not genetically modified, but are developed from indigenous varieties to mature faster and resist pests under changing climate conditions.
“The seed that has been bred this time, you may call it hybrid, but not all of it is hybrid. Some of it is open pollinated seed that has been bred to suit in that environment.Scientists right now are busy trying to come up with new varieties that can adapt to the season or the time that we are in right now.
And guess what? They are using the same indigenous seed.They are getting the genes from there and then they are mixing up with other things.
It has nothing to do with GMO whatsoever” she said.
Together, these efforts from large scale conservation to local innovation and scientific research are shaping a new future for farming in Zambia, one that’s more resilient, more productive, and better prepared for what lies ahead.
