Farm Talk Radio Educates Farmers in Zambia

World Wildlife Day is this weekend. Created by the United Nations to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild animals and plants. Hundreds of species of African wildlife are under threat from illegal poaching.  And it’s dangerous business. 

You might be thinking, but what does this have to do with COMACO and Lifeline Energy.  Here’s why: 

Tracking wildlife in the bush, whether in a national park or reserve or not, requires local people to leave their families for weeks.  They must walk for days at a time, sleeping in the open, often risking encounters with predatory animals, poisonous snakes and faulty firearms.  Poachers have attacked and lost their lives.  If caught, a poacher can spend decades in prison and face heavy fines. His family then suffers further. 

In Eastern Zambia, COMACO takes a systems approach to wildlife conservation, targeting rural poverty and food insecurity – the main driver behind illegal poaching in the wildlife-rich Luangwa Valley. By providing alternative livelihoods, like farming, to poachers and would-be poachers, increases food security and household incomes. In turn, COMACO's approach has greatly reduced the pressure on the region’s wildlife and in particular, treasured elephant population.

Law enforcement told people not to poach, but didn’t tell them why, or provide any suggestions for alternative sources of income. COMACO investigated further and realized that people were poaching because they lacked options for earning income. With low crop yields and limited road access, poaching was often the best way to earn money.

COMACO’s weekly radio programme, Farm Talk, also comprehensively addresses poaching in the local language, Nyanja.  This includes the costs and risks to communities when wildlife is poached and how to create increased food security and incomes through Farm Talk.  People also learn about signing COMACO's conservation pledge.  If you want to become a COMACO farmer, you must sign it and make a commitment to not poaching and not cutting down trees for charcoal production.  Farmers then join a cooperative which listens Farm Talk weekly on our Prime radios or Lifeplayer MP3 units if there is no or poor radio reception.

Supporting farmers to listen to Farm Talk has been one of our highest impact initiatives in our 20 years.  COMACO has close to 180,000 small scale registered farmers in Zambia, doubling their reach in the past 8 years.

When you support this project, you not only support farmers, but also Zambia’s precious wildlife.