By Kudzanai Chimhanda
Real agricultural transformation begins in a farmer’s field with a season that might not go quite as expected, a method that seems unfamiliar at first, and a decision to keep going. What began as a mother trial on one farmer’s land has grown into something much bigger, a practical example of how research, extension, farmer leadership, and institutional partnership can work together to move promising technologies beyond demonstration and into real adoption. It is also a reminder that lasting impact is not only about introducing a good idea, but about staying long enough for that idea to be understood, trusted, adapted, and taken forward by farmers themselves.
At the centre of this story is Mr Jackson Banda of Chinyanja camp, Chipata District, in Zambia’s Eastern Province. A retired teacher who has been farming for about 15 years, Mr Banda is not new to hard work or to the disappointments that can come with agriculture. Like many farmers, he has seen seasons become less predictable, with delayed rains, prolonged dry spells, and unreliable seed quality. He knows what it means to farm under uncertainty, or to shift from a traditional way of cropping to a system that first seems unfamiliar, even uncomfortable.
When he was selected to host a technology trial under SIFAZ in 2019, he started on a learning journey with six other farmers in his community. The first year was not easy as the system showed him to do things differently from the way he had always farmed. Instead of ploughing and keeping the land bare between crops, he was using soil disturbance, placed crops more deliberately, and start to diversify his maize crop with soybeans. At first, it was hard to understand, as new farming methods often are. Yet that difficult first
season turned out to be the beginning of something really new. Over time, what seemed hard became manageable, then meaningful, and finally convincing enough to share with others.
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