Agricultural Innovation and Support
Harnessing Climate Smart Crops
Underutilised crop species possess significant nutritional, medicinal and socio-economic potential. When properly utilised, these foods can enhance food security and nutrition across Africa. They also play a crucial role in poverty reduction, increasing farmers’ income, and job creation along value chains.
iLEAD Foundation seeks to use a demonstration farms approach to strengthen local food systems and create sustainable livelihoods by training smallholder farmers on branding strategies, market access and financial management to boost the visibility of underutilized crops such as sorghum, millet, cassava, bambara nuts, cowpea and traditional leafy vegetables. We establish demonstration farms to showcase innovative farming methods and Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA), enabling farmers to witness firsthand the benefits and techniques employed. The demonstration farms equip farmers with entrepreneurial skills to enhance their economic opportunities through sustainable agriculture.
Our programs include:
Value Addition Training
Farmers learn food processing, preservation, and packaging techniques to create market-ready products such as traditional flours, dried vegetables.
Financial Literacy
Training covers record-keeping, management, pricing strategies, and marketing skills to help farmers scale their businesses.
Market access:
We link farmers to organic food markets, increasing demand for underutilised crops. Additionally, in order to build resilient and sustainable food systems, iLEAD equips smallholder farmers with agroecological skills that enhance productivity while preserving biodiversity.
Soil fertility management
Biochar, composting, mulching, anthill soil and other organic fertilisers to improve soil health.
Natural pest & disease control
Using bio-pesticides to reduce chemical dependency.
Drought-resilient farming
Promoting traditional crop varieties that thrive in dry environments.
Field and Extension Services
There are many huddles in agriculture. Despite the government’s intervention, the majority of smallholder farmers, who form the biggest percentage of farmers in Zambia, deal with each of them solely. These range from the dynamic nature of the environment, such as climate change, pests and diseases and soil fertility declines, whose effects are heavily felt by smallholder farmers. At iLEAD, we conduct advisory and extension-related activities equipping farmers with knowledge and skills on how to manage pests and diseases, conduct good agricultural practices (GAPs), and build resilience to climate change effects. We therefore provide up-to-date climate information packages that suit specific agricultural applications at different stages of crop production to build resilience.
