Petronella grows more rice and increases rice production

08-08-2014 Petronella Kampamba is member of the group Kasinga B in village Cheswa in Chinsali District in the Northern Province of Zambia. She has 11 children between thirty-three and twelve years old. Some children are already married but they all live close by. She is 60 years old and her husband of 70 years old just married another woman of 23 years old. She feels very bad about it, because he does not give any support to her and the children.

Petronella grows one hectare of rice and half a hectare of cassava. She owns a cow and has chickens, only for home consumption. She also does fishing for cash income.

When it comes to rice growing she started with growing only one fourth of a hectare of rice, than half a hectare and now she grows one hectare of rice for cash income. In her area the group has a demonstration field from Chinsali District Rice Association. This year they did a trial with the use of jatropha as fertilizer. Petronella expects to harvest thirty 50 kg bags. The average harvest this year was 1 ton per hectare, due to the draught.  

In the area the farmers get extensions services from the company who buys the rice (COMACO Community Markets for Conservation) as well as from Chinsali District Rice Association in order to increase the rice production.