Background

Agriculture is essential to the Zambian economy. The southern part of Zambia has, until recently, been considered the ´bread-basket´ of the country. The farmers grow mainly maize with some cultivation of cassava, sweet potatoes and millet as supplementary crops.

But the farmers are faced with a dilemma: agriculture productivity has been on the decline over the past few years, and while some, in line with current trends, would like to blame climate change for these problems, the Lusaka based Conservation Farming Unit (CFU) believes that the problem lies mainly with the farming practices in the region. This problem, according to CFU, is not confined to all farmers. Jessie Nchimunya (82 years of age) from Choongo village in the Chimpati, Monze region is a farmer who had left for ´greener pastures´ but has now returned to southern Zambia and has been applying conservation-farming recommendations with great success. CFU are convinced there are more like her!