Project News

Authors: Ms. Lorna Kanguya (Zambia Agriculture Research Institute, ZARI)

Market Oriented Rice Development Project (MOReDeP) has been working with UNHCR to include refugee farmers, promote rice cultivation in refugee Settlements and more importantly support the Government of Republic of Zambia (GRZ) in actualising the pledge of including refugees in national input support programmes.

In this article, we will introduce the activity in Mantapala refugee settlement in Luapula Province.

Mantapala Settlement (MS) covering about 8,000 hectares was opened early 2018 in Nchelenge district, Luapula province to accommodate refugees from Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who entered Zambia through Luapula province and part of Northern border entry points. Today, refugees live side by side with a farming host community consisting of about 5,000 people in about 11 villages surrounding the settlement.

Upon arrival at Mantapala, the Government jointly with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), working closely with NGO partners provided support to refugees to engage in backyard gardening, livestock rearing and establishment of small-scale business. The support was aimed at enabling stabilisation, recovery of lost productive assets and rebuilding of lost livelihoods. In 2020, UNHCR in collaboration with Caritas Czech Republic, identified the first group of 30 farmers who were supported with training in rice farming and thereafter provided with rice inputs. In the same season, the farmers received complementary training and additional rice seeds from MOReDeP, a rice promoting project run by the Ministry of Agriculture in Zambia in collaboration with JICA.

To follow up above activities by the Government and UNHCR in collaboration with MOReDeP held a Harvest/Post-harvest training in the same area. MOReDeP, with support from JICA, working together with Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI), Caritas and UNHCR have equipped farmers with both information and skills in rice harvesting and post-harvest management. This is in an effort to help farmers improve the quality of their grain at harvest and in storage and in the long run achieve better profits from rice production.

A total of 37 farmers attended the training which mostly included refugees of Congo origin and a few Zambians who are living in the refugee community. Among these 37 farmers, 30 were farmers that were initially identified at the start of the interventions and had attended the rice cultivation training that was organised by MOReDeP and Caritas at the beginning of the 2020/21 farming season. These 30 farmers are also beneficiaries of the rice seed distribution that was done by MOReDeP immediately after the rice cultivation.

The group of farmers that attended this training included new farmers that desired to venture into rice cultivation and those that have been growing rice originally using traditional methods. This group of farmers included 29 males and 8 females.

The harvest/post-harvest training was a one-day training workshop and it was conducted on 14th April, 2021.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the farmers were split into two groups so that the covid-19 regulations that have been put by Ministry of Health could be easily adhered to.

Among the key points that farmers were taught to focus on during the time of rice harvesting/post-harvest were; Timing of harvest, Threshing methods and Drying methods.

The training was conducted using the training materials developed by the project and included both classroom lectures and practical training in the field.

For the farming season 2021/2022 a further 25 refugee farmers will receive SUPA and NERICA rice seeds to enhance production while also reaching more farmers.

JICA will continue to support the Government's Global Compact on Refugees inclusion agenda by continuing to support inclusion of refugee farmers into MOReDeP thereby promoting rice farming in the refugee Settlements.

Farmers who received rice cultivation training threshing harvested rice

UNHCR officer gives guidance to farmers

Ms. Lorna at rice farmer's field