The Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) has built a factory in Chipata District of Eastern Province which will be turning soybeans into premium quality cooking oil with a production capacity of 3,000 litres per day.
The launch, which took place at COMACO’s Chipata Hub on Friday has been dedicated to farmers.
Speaking during the launch of the US$150,000 facility, COMACO chief executive officer and founder Lewis Dale said the real value-addition that will come from these machines the well-being of small-scale farmers and the way the farmers care for their land.
“Its a story that spans 22 years. We started COMACO by helping the least skilled, poorest farmers how to abandon farming practices that were destroying their soils, keeping them poor and often without enough food. In its place we built a supply chain of healthy, chemical-free food crops produced the right way and by the same farmers who are now the exclusive source of a Zambian brand of food products called It’s Wild! And helping to feed the whole country,” Mr Dale said.
He said the sales revenue earned from these products that enable COMACO to offer premium prices to the farmer that is getting many thousands of small-scale farmers out of poverty and motivated to restore the health and safety of their land.
“This is the magic that lies beyond these walls that we’re so anxious and proud to show you today,” Mr Lewis said at the occasion attended by Minister of Agriculture, Reuben Mtolo and Eastern Province minister , Peter Phiri.
Mr Lewis said the road COMACO has been on for the past 22 years has not been easy due a myriad of hurdles to climb and lots of twists and turns to navigate.
“Most expected us to fail because we were not focused enough on making a profit, which was partly true because our mission has always been on impact, getting farmers out of poverty and protecting nature. Well, with your help, we’re still standing and gradually demonstrating how to do both, profit and impact,” he said.
Mr Dale said the experience has given rise to 115 farmer cooperatives consisting of over 335,000 small-scale farmers.
He said the cooperatives are now co-partners of the It’s Wild! brand that contributed to an annual turnover of about K154 million this past year, with 57 percent of the amount being paid for the crops that COMCO bought from its farmers as members of cooperatives and then turned into It’s Wild! products.
Mr Dale said aside from offering farmers top market prices, COMACO also pays a conservation dividend to the cooperatives that demonstrate their farmers are complying to the right practices for restoring soils and protecting forests.
“Farming with nature and doing business with farmers who do conservation is the kind of company we are. To make all this happen, we invest in manufacturing facilities near to our farmers so they could see our commitment with the hope they would make a reciprocal commitment to care for their land,” he said.
Mr Dale said the Chipata facility was COMACO’s first and was built from scratch to what it is now.
COMACO has since established similar facilities in Mumbwa and Serenje, with lesser ones in Nyimba and Chinsali.
He said the US$50 million investment has created for Zambia the economic drivers for giving small-scale farmers self-employment to fight climate change and rural poverty head on with the right farming practices.
“So, friends and colleagues, here we are, together as partners, with the opportunity to ask ourselves if we can see a better future for small-scale farmers and their land through the lens of COMACO, and if so, to imagine what we could do, perhaps together, to help build that future and what it might look like,” Mr Dale said.
By Benedict Tembo
I need contacts for COMCO and Dale to explore opportunities in my province