Nutrition and Agriculture – Furrer Foundation

Overview

With 45% stunting rate in children, Zambia has one of the highest burdens of malnutrition in the world. By supporting Zambian small-scale farmers Furrer Foundation is doing its part to reduce the burden. With our projects we try to promote sustainable farming practices and a diversification of farm production.

Community Training Farm (CTF) Mpanshya

To promote animal husbandry in a community, where traditionally hardly any livestock was being kept, the Community Training Farm Mpanshya was established. Before, people widely relied on wildlife and fish for animal protein in the area. But with the human population growing and with it the demand for bush meat unsustainable hunting practices took over and sustainable wildlife numbers disappeared from the surrounding.

The Community Training Farm was founded as a vehicle to spearhead the introduction of livestock in the area. Cultural resistance to new animal-crop systems had to be carefully tackled and advantages of livestock had also to be shown. Livestock should not only cover the shortage of animal protein in the area, but also allow a diversification of agricultural produce, increase crop production through draft animal use, lower the input costs for crop production through availability of manure and offer readily available capital reserves in livestock for local households.

CTF is registered in the legal form of a society with local farmers as members. Its mission is to offer training, livestock availability and animal produce to the community, as well as offering an alternative to the often fatal poaching in the neighbouring National Parks and Game Management Areas. To offer a broad insight in animal husbandry practices, CTF developed different systems on its premises:

a mixed dairy herd of dairy cattle and dairy goats grazing in the communal area on surrounding farms
draft animals for transportation and field preparation use
an organic gardening and crop production system with integrated poultry rearing
a piggery-fishpond system with integrated banana orchard
a large herd of beef and small ruminants seasonally grazing through the communal land

With established livestock farmers now in the area, CTF is also going into product processing (meat, cheese, yoghurt) to add value and enable the local producers to reach a wider market.

Small scale animal projects in Rufunsa District

Women goat programs: Not only to strengthen the role of the women but also because the women are usually more involved in the nutrition of the children, this program was designed only for women. Women from a local community can, with support of their local leader( Headwoman/-man), apply to this program. After going through a goat keeping training, the women each receive 4 female goats and are borrowed one male from CTF. They are to return their first offspring (5 goats) to CTF, which will go into the next women group.
Dairy cattle programm: A group of farmers was trained in dairy animal farming. They all received dairy animals and had to return the first calfs, these will go to the next group of trained farmers. Our dairy farmers are all part of CTF’s dairy cooperative, ready to process their milk at CTF’s dairy processing plant.
Communal Beef Herd: CTF is offering to share resources by taking in beef animals from other emerging farmers. The herding of all animals in one big herd which will be rotating through the communal area has a number of advantages. Objectives of the communal beef herd are:
- To reduce the destruction caused by the annual burning of crop land and bush by grazing down the vegetation through rotational high density grazing and thereby reducing fires.
- To reduce the overgrazing in areas were livestock has been established by replacing the constant grazing pressure with rotational grazing.
- To offer manure as replacement of expensive synthetic fertilizers when rotating in mobile kraals through the community.
- To enable livestock ownership to every community member, farm size and herding cost limitations aside.
- To reduce the number of children in school going age used for herding livestock.

Mporokoso Farms Ltd

Mporokoso Farms Ltd is a commercial farm in a rural setting which aims to invest its profits into the development of its rural environment. Agricultural production is often the only means of income in rural Zambia which still has abundant land that is not utilized for natural resource production. Nonetheless many areas lack the agricultural extension workers of the government helping the Zambian farmers with council and agricultural inputs. Another problem of rural small-scale farmers in Zambia is the access to markets. Through pilot farms in rural settings such as Mporokoso Farms Ltd managed in a sustainable way these shortcomings can be decreased. Often these commercially run farms can create a market for feed production by small-scale peasant farmers. An economic development through agricultural production seeks not only to utilise unproductive land through planned grazing but also to diminish dry season burning which occurs when grassland is derived of its grazers and burnt every year, releasing gigantic amounts of carbon dioxide and degrading the land for further use. Through proper management the land can be restored and can produce highly nutritious animal protein readily needed by rural and urban populations alike.

Nutrition support in Mpanshya area for vulnerable groups

Milk from the Community Training Farm (CTF) with the support of Furrer Foundation is supplied to: Pupils of primary school Mpanshya, children of paediatric ward and nutrition centre Mpanshya Hospital, pregnant women of waiting mothers shelters Mpanshya Hospital and any individuals in need.