S.A.V.E - Sustainable Agriculture Village Educators July 1995 - June 1996 Kapini, Zambia Funded by: Voluntary Deposits for International Aid (Japan) Implemented by: ICA Zambia, ICA Japan, and local people
Farmers' life is extremely unstable in Zambia because of the lack of farming technologies, rise in prices and water shortage. ICA started the S.A.V.E. (Sustainable Agriculture Village Educators) project in the country in 1991 in order to stabilize the farmerÕs income. We organized farmersÕ clubs and training seminars in agriculture, management and leadership. Participants in the project increased from 25 to 333 for five years, and so did their income. We further plan to have vocational training seminars for youth.
	1. Harvesting pumpkins grown after sustainable agriculture training. These children are bringing the pumpkins to eat as a snack.
Village Life in Kapini
	2. A traditional mushroom-shaped house, made of sun-dried bricks and a grass roof.
	3. Houses for an average family in a village. The small house is for cooking and the big one is for sleeping.
	4. A Mini-shop in Kapini village. They sell only a few kinds of basic goods.
	5. Inside a cooking house. Fire-wood and charcoal are using for cooking.
	6. A women cooking Nishima, a common food in Zambia. To cook Nishima, maize (corn) meal is boiled in water and mixed with a wooden spatula.
	7. A grandmother preparing sweet beer to drink after hard work in the field.
Seed Distribution
	8. ICA Zambia staff distributing soy-bean seed to small scale farmers.
	9. ICA Zambia staff distributing maize seed to small scale farmers.
	10. Children playing with maize cobs.
Sustainable Agriculture
	11. ICA Zambia S.A.V.E. staff conducting the sustainable agriculture training at the Nyansala farmer club in Chongwe. This training is for market gardening, small animal and main crop production. The farmers are listening intently to the trainer.
	12. Velvet beans for improving soil fertility. Velvet beans are also used to feed livestock.
	13. Acacia albida is a nitrogen fixing tree. The farmers were taught to grown this tree in rows in the fields. The farmers used to cut them as weeds.
	14. In the S.A.V.E program farmers were taught to use mulch around tomato seedlings to keep moisture in and weeds out.
	15. S.A.V.E promotes compost making for improving soil in gardens.
	16. A Rape garden of the Umoze farmer club. Rape is one of the most favorite vegetables in Zambians. Customers come all the way from Lusaka to buy Rape.
	17. Farmer watering vegetables using watering can distributed through S.A.V.E. funding from Japan's Postal Savings for International Voluntary Aid program.
	18. Cabbage growing well with the help of compost as a natural fertilizer.
	19. Tomato field before harvest. Tomatos are also very common in the Zambian diet.
	20. Harvested cotton. Harvest season for cotton is from July to August. The sale price is about thirty dollars for an 80 kg bag.
	21. This farmer was delighted with improved results of his sunhemp field. Farmers learned to plant it alternately with corn to keep the soil fertile.
	22. Sunhemp is rotated with other crops because it can be used as a form of green manure. After harvesting, the plants are plowed back into the soil to make it fertile. This field will be used to grow maize next season.
	23. Shelled sorghum is dried for two weeks before storage.
	24. This ICA Japan staff is inspecting sunflower seeds. S.A.V.E. techniques helped make this year's harvest very good.
Harvest Time
	25. A farmer inspecting the progress of his sorghurm which is promissing to be a good harvest.
	26. Large watermelons are harvested as food for both human beings and livestock.
	27. The farmers are delighted with their good harvest of maize. This year's harvest made them very happy, because last four years had been bad harvest due to insufficient rainfall.
	28. A farmer eating field mice in front of a storage bin made from wood and grass.
	29. Inside of another storage bin full of maize.
	30. An improved storage bin made of sun dried bricks. After shelling the farmers store their Maize in a bin.
Shelling Work
	31. Shelling maize by the traditional method.
	32. Village people of Chongwe shelling maize.
	33. Shelling maize by a hand-driven shelling machine.
	34. Shelling is very simple but hard work.
	35. Shelling maize by hand to remove what was missed by the shelling machine.
	36. After shelling, farmers put maize into 90kg bags to be sold for about eight dollars each.
Agroforestry
	37. An ICA Zambia S.A.V.E staff conducting agro-forestry training in Chongwe.
	38. An agroforestry nursery of the Chibombo women's club. The Chibombo women's club raises trees for income generation.
	39. A three-year old Sesbania tree about four meters high. Sesbania tree leaves are used for animal feed and nitrogen fixing.
Small Animal Raising
	40. A traditional incubator where hens lay eggs and incubate them for 3 weeks until the chicks are ready for hatching.
	41. A laying hen sitting on eggs.
	42. The ICA demonstration poultry house. This large well-ventilated building was introduced to make raising large chickens for income generation possible.
	43. Inside the poultry house. While chicks are young, the attendant stays close by at night to keep a warm temperature with a charcoal stove.
	44. Two-week old chicks. Many chicks are kept in the small room to maintain a warm temperature.
	45. Five-week old chicks. They are ready for sale after eight-weeks. To minimize the cost of feed, instead of using expensive pre-mixed commercial feed, three kinds of feed are bought and mixed together.
	46. This farmer was able to buy these cows thanks to the improved crop yields as a result of S.A.V.E project.
	47. Pigs in the local club's piggery house.
	48. Goats are easy and inexpensive to rear because they eat weeds and leaves around the village.
House Upgrading
	49. A typical farmer's house in the village. The owner has to replace the grass roof every two years.
	50. The Umoze farmer club in Kapini village. Some famers are able to build new houses with expensive red bricks because their income was raised by S.A.V.E project over the past five years.
	51. A completed red brick house. People can live in this house comfortably even during rainy season because of its corrugated iron roof.
Wells
	52. A shallow well dug by village people. It is about 7 meters deep with a tire to protect its opening.
	53. A well for drinking water bored by ICA Zambia. One well serves about 30 families. ICA has dug15 such wells throughout Kapini, Chongwe and Chibombo.
	54. A shallow well for watering a garden made by farmers.
	55. A woman carrying water from the clean deep well introduced by ICA.
Charcoal Stoves
	56. In Zambia, a lot of people using this type of charcoal stove for cooking and heating.
	57. This clay stove was made of local soil in Zambia.
	58. The charcoal consumption of the clay stove is about half of conventional one. Using the clay stove is very efficient and saves trees.
Kapini Training Centre
	59. A multi-blade type windmill imported from South Africa. The windmill pumps water up from a 60-meter deep well. The Kapini area has two windmills and 600 village people are using these pumps for their water supply.
	60. The ICA Kapini training center. Farmer training has been carried out in this training center since it was founded in 1978.
	61. Staff from ICA ZAMBIA and ICA Japan. The number of local ICA staff has increased from only 4 in 1991 to 20 in 1996.

Back to International Projects About ICA | ICA News | Activities in Japan | Overseas Projects Facilitation | Town Making | Join us | Links | Contact Us Home-E | Home-J We are grateful that this site is sponsored by Next Generation Hosting