Enhancing organic cotton fibre production in Zambia: unifying food security, markets and conservation: quick guide

What we do

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has a 30-year programme of implementing conservation initiatives designed to enhance the long-term protection of the wildlife-rich Luangwa Valley ecosystem in Zambia. Since 1998, WCS has worked on the development of a new model for conservation - Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) - that links key elements of rural development and farmer-based markets to land and natural resource protection. Over the past decade, WCS has established a landscape-scale infrastructure to organise poor, food-insecure farmers into producer groups, now totaling over 2,000, as a platform for providing improved farming and land use skills. These efforts have improved food production and lowered the need for many households to rely on illegal use of wildlife.
Lack of secure income not associated with exploitative uses of natural resources remains an important challenge for conservation in Luangwa Valley. To address this challenge, WCS works with these producer groups to produce commodities for valued-added products as a basis for rewarding farmers for their compliance to improved farming and land use practices needed to reduce threats to Luangwa's natural resources. These efforts have given rise to a brand name, It's Wild!, for over 10 different products that have increased the value of four primary commodities - rice, groundnuts, soybeans and honey - by 200% to 300%. COMACO has reached a scale of production and sustainability and revenue support for producers that farmers now actively support new ideas for improving farming practices and appropriate crops that can better harmonise the full benefits of markets through conservation.
Organic cotton is the fifth major crop COMACO seeks to introduce on a scale as achieved with its current crops. WCS recognises that the full wealth of both wildlife and farming on a given landscape is achievable only through organic farming practices and through high-end, high-volume farm production with trade benefits conditional on farmer compliance to land use practices that protect renewable resources.
In 2007, Edun Apparel Ltd and the WCS established a partnership to create and launch the Conservation Cotton Initiative (CCI) in Africa. The goal is to improve both the livelihoods of local people and environmental management through the development of a product that brings greater revenues to local farmers and adds value to both the local and global communities. Target countries include Zambia, Uganda and Madagascar.
In Zambia, the CCI fits within the COMACO programme, which transitions conventional cotton production that relies on chemical pesticides to an organic-based production. The CCI uses market-based pricing incentives to reduce levels of farming threats to soils, forests and wildlife in close proximity to existing national forests and parks of the Luangwa Valley, and has the following objectives:

• Establish a strong and sustained alternative to pesticide-based cotton farming; Project activities will contribute to an increased farmer know-how in producing organic cotton and to an improved market environment for shifting cotton production away from pesticide-based farming in Luangwa Valley.
• Increase the economic advantage for a pesticide-free Luangwa Valley: Project activities will increase the value-added benefits of growing preferred crops using ecologically smart farming practices that will build a community-wide preference for a pesticide-free Luangwa Valley by enabling a growing number of households to achieve income security. COMACO's approach of supporting a combination of commodities suitable to a particular area's ecology, capable of adding significantly to a family's income, is well-adapted to Zambia's rich natural resources and demonstrates a viable economic model for building a pesticide-free landscape and local commitment to conservation. Cotton serves as one of the key crops in this process.
• Ensure the harvesting, ginning and sale of the first crop of conservation cotton under the WCS-Edun CCI: By ensuring premium payments to farmers and the sale of ginned cotton to manufacturerers from whom Edun will purchase t-shirts, COMACO will be instrumental in launching conservation cotton in the marketplace.

ComMark's funding for and participation in this initiative aim to increase COMACO's capacity to enhance the value of organic cotton together with the value-added processing of ‘sister' or ‘complementary' crops grown with cotton through:

• Organic certification of both cotton and its helper crops;
• Farmer capacity to monitor soils and crop yields;
• Improved capacity to produce quality seeds, compost fertiliser and green manure inputs; and

The effective operation of a ‘baby-gin' for value-added processing of cotton into lint for sale to conservation-minded apparel companies.

Why this intervention

The WCS-Edun collaboration, along with the growing market for organic cotton, provides a unique opportunity to build competitive value chains in Africa to the benefit of rural farmers. There is a shortage of supply globally for organic cotton, offering strong potential for high growth in the market for this product and associated textiles and apparel. Moreover, the CCI approach supports the development of organic production of complementary crops that diversifies farmer access to markets and addresses key food security issues.
Organic cotton production must be considered to be pro-poor as it has the potential to create additional revenue for hundreds of thousands of farmers across the African continent. The move away from chemical pesticide has strong health benefits for the farmers involved as well as ensuring the sustainability and indeed enhancement of agricultural activity while helping to maintain biodiversity and the integrity of the landscapes. This has positive food security implications and direct benefits to farming communities with significant potential to alleviate poverty. In addition, there is the potential to sustain and increase employment of factory workers in the industrial elements of the value chain.

What we achieve

A number of key steps have been followed in meeting this project's objectives:

• Initial producer groups well-situated to demonstrate organic cotton farming methods to surrounding producer groups where environmental threats from the effects of poverty and poor farming methods are greatest have been identified. These farmers are already producing organic cotton.
• Extension staff have been trained in technical skills of organic cotton farming and ‘demonstration' hubs have been established with initial farmers to expand skills to other producer groups. Specific attention has been given to farm harvesting, storage, handling and transportation techniques to ensure that the harvested cotton meets the required quality standards.
• COMACO, working with commercial partners committed to cotton as a conservation crop (principally Edun), provides not less than 15% above pesticide-based cotton price for organic cotton.
• COMACO, with its trucks and depot staff, collects the organic cotton and ensures that the cotton is bailed properly with high standards of cleanliness.
• COMACO bulks all the cotton at one of its storage sheds for final shipment to a commercial gin. By year two of the project, COMACO will own and operate a ‘baby gin' and directly transport lint to Edun's preferred site of textile manufacturing - increasing the likelihood that textile development of COMACO's organic cotton will take place within Zambia.
• Prior to harvesting and buying cotton, existing farmers in the programme are evaluated according to compliance requirements for continuation in the program and accessibility to benefits. The requirements include sustainable farming practices, compost making, seed collection of sister crops, beehives set up and tillage area size.
• Dry season activities include continued field-day training programmes of existing farmers and new producer group participants. Part of this training involves techniques and procedures for each farmer producer group to monitor soils and crop yields using simple diagnostic measuring techniques and elementary recording methods for assessing trends and progress in achieving sustainable agricultural objectives.
• COMACO also sustains an active programme of sensitising community leaders to the economic and environmental benefits of organic farming and the role of these leaders in building continued community support of the COMACO approach to farming.
• A revolving fund has been established to ensure the purchase of cotton from farmers and payment to ginning and certification costs. The fund is essential to ensure the COMACO can purchase the cotton from the farmers, otherwise farmers may be forced to sell at lower prices to conventional cotton brokers in the region.

By the end of year three, this project aims to have 3,500 farmers trained in organic production techniques and producing 0.5 hectare of organic cotton each. It endeavours to increase overall annual household income from organic farming using a combination of crops under the COMACO pricing regime to 60% higher than conventional farming.

How is this sustainable

The project is fortunate to have the foundation of an existing and growing agricultural marketing scheme, COMACO, to add substantial support and resilience to the sustainability of the proposed CCI when ComMark's intervention ends. Cotton is one of five major farm-based commodities that COMACO incorporates as a collective set of crops to promote both conservation and rural livelihoods and all will benefit from the well-developed infrastructure of storage sheds, transport, communication and staff. Moreover, the opportunities to increase the market value of organic cotton will benefit from the ongoing collaboration COMACO/WCS is having with Edun to produce a high-valued t-shirt within Zambia from the cotton produced by this project to add value and thus sustainability to the conservation cotton COMACO will produce.
In addition, the initiative will have the long-term support of a pre-existing and improving professional staff that leads COMACO to help maintain sufficient revenue returns from its commodities to ensure long-term sustainability for COMACO. To enhance these efforts, COMACO/WCS developed a five-year strategic plan that is reviewed annually through a performance audit of projected benchmarks.
Another key sustainability component is the creation of a revolving fund for the purchase of conservation cotton among COMACO producers. The fund will be managed for its long-term sustainability so that COMACO can maintain a sufficient and growing resource base that will allow the purchase of cotton into the future

Who we work with

Wildlife Conservation Society and Edun Apparel Ltd

Wildlife Conservation Society and its Conservation Farmer Wildlife Producer Trading Centre (WCS Zambia)