Six-member team of RySS leaves for Zambia

Anantapur: Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, Government of Andhra Pradesh, implementing the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) programme sent a team of 6 members led by Lakshma Naik, chief technology & innovation officer (CTIO) of RySS to Zambia.

The team is visiting Zambia on the invitation of NOW Partners (an international philanthropic organisation) and two local community organisations, the Salesian Sisters: Valponasca Learning Farm, Luwingu district and the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre, Lusaka district from August 27 to September 7, to initiate a pilot project on natural farming model in Zambia from September 2024 onwards. NOW Partners is a network of 100+ global business leaders and change experts and is playing an important role in supporting RySS in the scaling up the APCNF model globally and putting Andhra Pradesh on the global map.

Apka programme is recognised as the world’s largest agro-ecology programme in terms of number of practicing farmers. Over 10 lakh smallholder farmers are enrolled in the programme and are practicing natural farming across 500,000 hectares. Delegations from 45 countries have visited the programme. Several countries have asked for technical support from RySS to initiate natural farming in their country. APCNF has recently won the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity 2024 in July. The AP govt has pledged the prize money of Euros 330,000 towards the global scaling of natural farming.

The Zambia visit is the first of such international seeding initiatives of Govt of AP. A delegation of six members from RySS led by chief technology & innovation officer (CTIO) and consisting of five champion farmers and officials from the Rythu Sadhikara Samstha are travelling to Zambia from August 27 to September 7, on a scoping visit to see for themselves the farming situation in Zambia, and they will also seed the unique Pre-Monsoon Dry Sowing (PMDS) technology of RySS.

Prior to this visit, RySS,AP, hosted a Zambian delegation in June 2024. This was facilitated by NOW Partners. The delegation had 16 participants including farmer practitioners from the two community-based organisations - Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre (KATC) and Valponasca Learning Farm (VLF) of the Salesian Sisters as well as from the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Zambia.

After the visit, the two community organisations had requested RySS team to visit and initiate the seeding of the Natural Farming model in Zambia, according to a RySS press release.