Portfolio Spotlight: COMACO

Promoting conservation and sustainable agriculture in Eastern Zambia

In May 2020, MCE executed a US$2,000,000 investment in Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), a pioneering social enterprise that works closely with rural communities across Zambia’s Luangwa Valley to promote sustainable agricultural practices with enhanced market access in a way that incentivizes forest and wildlife conservation, promotes household income and food security, and increases climate resilience for small-scale farmers.

During the 1980s and 1990s, wildlife poaching was rampant in the Luangwa Valley. Poor agricultural practices led to soil degradation and reduced yields, leaving many rural communities in food insecure, impoverished conditions and without a stable source of income. With inadequate market access and limited produce available to sell, these families resorted to poaching wildlife in order to survive — ”bushmeat” could at least be traded for cash and food, while ivory was sold on the black market. However, this rarely generated enough income to escape from poverty and added risks of arrest, which only exacerbated rural poverty in the region with the breakup of families and communities.

COMACO was founded in 2003 under the belief that incentivizing conservation with sustainable economic opportunities would reduce illegal wildlife poaching while addressing its root cause — the reduction of rural poverty.

COMACO began operations with a small group of 24 illegal wildlife poachers, offering training on sustainable agriculture best practices, inputs, and access to markets in exchange for their weapons and their commitment to wildlife and environmental conservation. Since then, COMACO has transformed the lives of more than 1,700 poachers and greatly expanded its program in the process — the company has developed long-lasting partnerships with more than 80 community cooperatives comprising over 185,000 small-scale farmers. Through their partnership with COMACO, these farmers are committed through a formal conservation pledge that includes the conservation of soils, forests, and wildlife.

COMACO’s hybrid business model combines agriculture extension services with the management of a full-scale commercial value chain. Its seasoned management is involved with related stakeholders at all levels, from small-scale farmers to local and international clients.

By organizing small-scale farmers in its network of cooperatives, training them in sustainable agricultural practices, and monitoring their cultivation and harvest process, COMACO has a powerful impact in its communities, evidenced by improvement in yields and substantially higher household incomes. COMACO procures and collects the harvested produce from cooperatives at premium prices, which is then marketed under the company-owned brand It’s Wild! The company’s main products include peanut butter, Yummy Soy (a fortified food product, featuring a blend of corn, soy, sugar and vitamins), and rice.

The social, economic, and environmental impact of COMACO’s operations is managed closely by a dedicated monitoring and evaluation team, emphasizing the company’s commitment to its mission. Thanks to the training, supervision, and market access provided by COMACO, the farmers in its network have experienced a 2–3x increase in production yields and over 300% increase in household income. This provides greater food and economic security to rural households, as well as improved nutrition, benefiting local economies while promoting conservation in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley.

COMACO has successfully expanded its business in recent years, including a carbon credits business segment established in partnership with the World Bank in 2015. A share of the revenue from these credits is redistributed to COMACO’s cooperatives, further incentivizing conservation practices through agroforestry and forest protection programs. To date, this carbon credits program has offset more than 228,000 tons of carbon emissions and protected over 1,500,000 hectares of forest.

In parallel, COMACO has various additional projects that are generating substantial impact. The honey production by communities that are part of the carbon credits program is a good example — COMACO has distributed and installed more than 30,000 beehives in community forests, serving as an alternative source of income for community members while strengthening forest ecosystems through wildlife reintegration. Another project is the distribution of clean cookstoves — COMACO has distributed over 90,000 cookstoves to date, with the goal of reducing deforestation and respiratory illnesses, especially among women and children. COMACO also promotes gender inclusion through initiatives such as women-led savings groups and female household vegetable farms, as well as a community radio station for the broadcasting of trainings and calendar of activities.

MCE has already disbursed the first tranche of $1,000,000 of the $2,000,000 overall commitment. We are proud to be collaborating with Fundación Netri, Candide Group, and Blink C.V. to support COMACO. The second tranche, expected to be disbursed in June 2020, will consist of $200,000 from MCE, $300,000 from Netri, $250,000 from Candide, and $250,000 from Blink. This collective investment will enable COMACO to further procure high-quality produce from its network of small-scale farmers, improving their annual incomes and maximizing its production capacity in the ongoing season.

Photos courtesy of COMACO