Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre (KATC)

SCIAF has been working in partnership with the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre since 2006. The Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre (KATC) is located just south of Lusaka and helps to retrain rural subsistence farmers in organic agriculture. This project will provide training for 1,200 small-scale farmers, as well as indirectly benefiting their family members by increasing yields and nutrition levels.

The training focuses on conservation farming that promotes sustainable, low-input drought-resistant farming techniques. These methods do not rely on chemical fertilisers that pollute the ground and cost farmers money.

It is hoped that the farmers will then play a part in reducing food insecurity within their own communities.

As well as training farmers on how to grow organically, the project also teaches how the non-edible parts of plants can be used to feed livestock to help produce meat for families and also manure for the fields.

SCIAF has brought the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre together in partnership with 3 other organisations in Zambia to establish a programme which promotes sustainable farming practices among small-scale farmers, in a bid to increase their long term food security. As part of this programme KATC promotes organic agriculture in the Chongwe district of Zambia. KATC is working with approximately 1,200 small-scale farmers, training them on conservation farming, agroforestry and organic production. KATC will also work with the Ministry of Education to further organic farming in schools in Zambia.

In September, SCIAF took all four partners on a study tour visiting Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Burundi. The study tour allowed members of each organisation to view different techniques, such as organic agriculture and agro-forestry, in practice and successfully improving food security among farmers. The aim of the study tour was to stimulate the participant’s knowledge and understanding of different approaches and techniques that can be used to improve food security.

In August 2009 SCIAF sent a grant of over £220,000 to the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre to assist them with their work.