The NOW Partners Foundation (NOW) and Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS) are pioneering agricultural transformation in Zambia through pilot projects centered on natural farming, a chemical-free methodology designed to significantly enhance producers’ yields, incomes, and overall resilience. This innovative approach eschews synthetic inputs, instead leveraging locally sourced materials and natural ecological processes. Core practices, including cover-cropping, low-tillage, and crop diversification, are strategically employed to bolster soil health and biodiversity while simultaneously reducing operational costs for farmers. Aya Okawa, Creative Director and Managing Partner at NOW Partners Foundation, emphasized that this is a marriage of tradition and modernity, “relying on some of the latest in modern science and agronomic research to develop a new and innovative method of agroecology that is responsive to so many of the challenges and conditions that farmers are facing globally.”
The Zambian initiative is directly modeled on the highly successful Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) program, which was launched by the government of Andhra Pradesh, India, in 2016 and implemented by RySS. The APCNF’s exponential growth is a testament to the model’s efficacy, expanding from 40,000 to over 1 million participating farmers in eight years. This rapid scaling has delivered tangible benefits, including substantial increases in farmer incomes, improved climate resilience, and significant water consumption savings. To replicate this success in Zambia, NOW Partners and RySS have established key local partnerships with the Salesian Sisters’ Valponasca Learning Farm and the Jesuit Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre, both of which possess established networks extending to thousands of farmers. A crucial initial step involved representatives from these Zambian networks, along with government officials, visiting APCNF’s experimental fields in India to undertake intensive training and learn how to adapt the natural farming techniques to specific local conditions.
A cornerstone of the APCNF model and the key to its rapid expansion is farmer-to-farmer coaching. According to Okawa, this system utilizes “Champion Natural Farmers” who are tasked with training and motivating their peers to transition away from chemical farming. NOW and RySS are focused on establishing a parallel coaching network in Zambia, which Okawa believes will not only disseminate knowledge to a broader base but also “create support within the farmer communities.” Early results from the first growing season have already demonstrated the system’s benefits. Sister Chansa Modester of the Valponasca Learning Farm reported observable improvements, noting, “We have seen Natural Farming crops survive storms when the chemical crops were destroyed. We have seen stronger plants, and paid less than for chemical inputs.” The practices also significantly boost resilience to extreme weather; for instance, a naturally farmed maize field demonstrated greater structural integrity during heavy rainfall compared to an adjacent conventionally treated field, which sustained extensive damage.
Furthermore, the introduction of biodiversity and multi-layered cropping practices is yielding positive economic and food security outcomes. Unlike chemically treated fields typically planted only with maize, the naturally farmed plots feature a variety of interplanted vegetables and leafy greens. Okawa explained that this continuous cropping contributes to “improved food security so that farmers have sources of food on an ongoing basis that can be harvested,” providing both a consistent food supply and additional income streams that have excited farmers about fully integrating these new methods. Looking ahead, NOW and its partners are planning a substantial scale-up of the Zambian pilots. This expansion will also involve integrating the APCNF methodology into the curricula of Zambia’s agricultural colleges and extension systems, which collectively train 5,000 emerging farmers and experts annually. The promising results and implementation partner enthusiasm in Zambia are simultaneously invigorating NOW’s strategy for scoping additional natural farming pilots across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including new collaborations already underway in Sri Lanka and Brazil.
