The Mukuni Regenerative Community Farm

Led by Moono Zimuka

Moono Zimuka is a 34-year-old single mother of two. When the Mukuni Organic Farm launched in December 2019, under the farm's former manager Irvin, she joined with almost no idea what “organic” actually meant. She had farmed before, but chemical-free, sustainable growing was entirely new to her. She spent her first nine months on the farm simply as a volunteer, learning the trade from the ground up.

What the farm taught her

Over the years, Moono has mastered techniques she’d never encountered before: cultivating tomatoes and herbs like thyme, basil, parsley and coriander; building “trench beds” that layer dry and fresh grass or leaves with manure and ash into nutrient-rich soil; and setting up drip irrigation, learning to water early morning or evening so plants survive the heat of the day.

From volunteer to homeowner

The biggest change hasn’t been in the fields, but in her finances. The farm taught Moono how to budget and save, and she set herself a goal: put aside 500 kwacha every month from her wages. With those savings she has been steadily buying building blocks and cement, and today she is in the process of building her own home, something she achieved through the financial stability her work at the farm provided.

A farm built to give communities self-reliance

The Mukuni Community Farm is a partnership between BLC, the Green Safaris Conservation Foundation and the Mukuni Development Trust, established in Livingstone, Zambia’s tourist capital. Together with the community, a fully sustainable organic farm was built to feed the community for years to come, recovering natural water and nutrient cycles and using holistic grazing to rehabilitate land and plant life.

Eighteen village members now work at the farm full-time, in roles spanning organic agriculture, food forest cultivation, poultry farming, rotational grazing and mushroom growing, and regular workshops, sometimes attended by more than 80 people at a time, pass those same skills on to other farmers. The aim is self-reliance: links to markets for the community’s produce, sustainable income, and less dependence on natural resources and wildlife exploitation. For Moono, that aim now has a very concrete shape: a house of her own, built one bag of cement at a time.