our approach
In 2021/22 we piloted our approach with 150 farmers in 3 villages in Kalomo District, Southern Zambia. We provided every farmer with a 10kg seed loan and guaranteed to purchase the grain from them at harvest. We had hoped to aggregate 70MT of sorghum but in the end we only got 10MT. Out of the 150 farmers that got seeds loans, only 26 produced a harvest. Two of the three villages we worked in did not produce any harvest and farmers that did harvest got an average yield of less than 400kg / ha
In 2022/23 we adapted our approach to focus on ensuring more farmers produced a harvest. One key change we made was to ask farmers for a down payment against their seed loan. We worked with 150 farmers again last year, but to enable us to provide better support, we focused on one village and reduced the size of the farmers groups from 75 to 25. The other key change we made was to support a second crop: we offered farmers a sunflower seed loan in addition to the sorghum seed loan. This was a direct response to farmers requests and enabled crop rotation and supports soil health. Sunflower is particularly effective in supporting soil health because of its deep root structure and because it provides a habitat for soil fungi (mycorrhizal). With one, short, rainy season early planting is critical to achieving good yields. Poorer farmers that do not own oxen struggle to plant early. In 2022/23 we offered these poorer farmers ploughing loans so that they could hire oxen from their neighbours, enabling them to plant early and increase their yields.
Following the introduction of deposits, our seed loan repayment rates increased significantly in 2022/23 compared to the previous season, with repayments up to 50%, but sorghum yields remained stubbornly low. The most critical factor remains late planting, which is primarily due to the fact that farmers prioritise their maize crop for early planting. It is clear that our ploughing loan was not as effective as it could have been and we will need to improve management of ploughing loans this coming season. Finally, last season reinforced the fact that plant spacing is critical to achieving higher yields.
In 2023/24 we adapted our approach again with a focus on increasing yields. Our goal was to double yields to 1 MT / ha.
We reduced the number of farmers we work with - but increased the support that we provide to each farmer. Farmers that produced an above average yield last season were offered a larger seed loan. Increasing the size of the sorghum seed loan from 5kg to 20kg enabled us to maintain the total area planted to sorghum while reducing the number of farmers we needed to monitor. This also has the added benefit of increasing the total harvest that each farmer can achieve so they can realise a significant, and indisputable, increase in income from growing sorghum.
We invested in soil tests, which showed that Nitrogen & Phosphorous levels are critically low (4% of requirements). We therefore piloted fertiliser loans with a small number of farmers.
To support these seed & fertiliser loans we invested in a mechanical planter: plant spacing is critical to achieving higher sorghum yields, but the small size of sorghum seed makes manual planting particularly difficult and manual thinning represents a significant labour requirement at a time when farmers have many competing demands on their labour.
At the same time as investing in more inputs, we also provided incentives for early planting through a combination of price foresight & advance payments. Providing price foresight at the start of the season is a key differentiator for sorghum since farmers do not have price guarantees for any other crops at planting time. We also provided an advance payment. We believe that early payment could potentially provide the most effective incentive for early planting. Advance payment addresses a critical cash–flow crisis that poorer farmers struggle with every year: the months before the next harvest, known as the ‘hunger season’.