AP community-based natural farming set to be implemented in Zambia

The farmers of Zambia will implement community-based natural farming of Andhra Pradesh in their country. The Zambian delegation is on a tour of Andhra Pradesh studying Andhra Pradesh Community-Based Natural Farming (APCNF). The delegation includes agriculture researchers from the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Zambia, as well as farmer practitioners and project functionaries from two community-based organizations – Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre (KATC) and Valponasca Learning Farm (VLF) started by Salesian Sisters visiting the fields of APCNF for two weeks.
The Rythu Sadhikara Samstha officials said that the Government of Andhra Pradesh, through the Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS)  in the name of APCNF has been promoting natural farming on a large scale since 2016. The RySS officials stated that the Zambian delegation will learn in detail the practices and implementation of APCNF to gain insights that can be applied to promote natural farming in Zambia. The delegation team already reached Anantapur District on June 7 and will continue till 21st June. The training programme to the delegation will be held in the Anantapur District Project Management Unit office as well as in villages of Anantapur district, following APCNF’s ‘learning by doing’ principle. The delegation will learn the APCNF model by practising the natural farming principles with APCNF farmers under the guidance of  APCNF farmer trainers and Lakshma Naik, the District Project Manager, APCNF Project Anantapur and  Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of RySS.
The RySS officials further stated that this is the first step towards a long-term international collaboration between Andhra Pradesh and Zambia. They explained that the RySS is getting ready to play the role of an International Resource Organization (INRO) on Natural Farming (NF). They further explained that following this initial exposure visit, a senior technical team from RySS will travel to Zambia for a scoping visit to define the strategy and project timelines and deliverables. The RySS officials stated that once this is completed, senior farmer trainers from the Anantapur APCNF project will be deployed in Zambia for three years to seed the natural farming model in Zambia.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Zambia has nominated Silumesi Mundia and two other training officers from agriculture colleges to study the APCNF Model. Fr. Claus Recktenwald from KATC has brought a delegation of 11 farmer practitioners. Sr Modester Chansa from VLF has arrived in Andhra Pradesh with five farmer representatives. The Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre works to promote the adoption of sustainable organic agriculture with rural communities in Lusaka County in Zambia and the VLF serves as an agricultural school, training young people to work on the land and become self-reliant and provides formal education, professional training, and skills to 529 small-scale community farmers, helping them improve their families’ incomes.