We have created a brilliant innovation to address the logistical and financial challenges of reforestation. We normally sell seedlings to support our work, but this has been challenge for various reasons. In a dry place like Chongwe were we are located, watering the seedlings has been hard because they need alot of moisture before they reach maturity and when they do, we have to figure out how to transport them to our customers. But thanks to our genius 1kg forest pack, we do not have to do all this anymore.
For only K1000, our forest pack contains a carefully selected mix of indegenous species, such as Mutondo (Julbernadier Paniculata), Musangu (Faidherbia albida), Acacia (Acacia Decurrens), and Musekese (Monkey Bread), along with wild fruit seeds like Kawawasha (Tamarind), Ngayi (Vangueria infausta) and Mabuyu (Baobab). We have chosen these specific varieties to provide a variety of benefits: climate resilience, agroforestry and improved nutrition. For instance, farmers use the Musangu in our forest pack to boost soil health for better maize yields and to reduce their dependency on expensive harmful artificial fertilizers.
Mutondo is a miracle tree for climate mitigation – One mature tree can keep upto 25kgs of carbon dioxide in the soil every year. This resilient tree is commonly cut down for charcoal and timber and by reforesting it using the seed pack, we are ensuring sustainable forest management by ordinary people.
Some of our Facebook followers requested a cheaper forest pack and we came up with the K500 one that contains just 4 seed types. Musangu, Acacia, Mutondo and Musekese.
We market the Forest Packs on our Facebook page using paid ads that lead to Whatsapp where clients message us to make orders. We deliver for free in Lusaka using bikers and we send out of Lusaka using Platinum couriers. We have sold more than 20 forest packs, with more than 8 customers coming from out of Lusaka.
Most of our customers are small scale farmers, people who have bare land they have not developed and institutions who are looking to make their surroundings green.
We source our seeds from all over Zambia – We have seed collectors in Livingstone, Chama, Serenje and Mkushi.
What was just a way for us to survive has turned into an idea we want to scale. We want to offer more seed varieties, upto 20 so that people can choose what goes in their pack. People have asked for other seed types such as pine or soursop and with funding we can take this further.
We have also had inquiries from Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi and even Kenya. ‘How can we get the seed packs in our country?’ They have asked and at scale, we see us developing a landing page with an online payment option for people outside Zambia.
Perhaps the most important discovery we have made is that marginalised and indegenous people are earning a decent living helping us bring the seed pack to customers. From the women and young people who pick the seeds all over Zambia, to the villagers in our project from Chongwe who sort out the seeds, the benefits of the seed packs have been spread to everyone along the way. The customer gets the seeds to plant at their farm or plot, the people helping us put it together get jobs and we get income to sustain our reforestation efforts.
We are planting 20,000 indegenous trees this rain season to reforest and restore 1 square kilometer of land that has been degraded due to illegal timber cutting and unsustainable burning of charcoal. This is a part of our Chongwe Reforestation Project where we have also raised climate awareness to more than 400 students in schools and 500 people in Kapuka, Chikwela and Chisengo villages in Chongwe.
