English
FrançaisThe Agricultural Knowledge and Training Centre (AKTC), a project financed under the Bilateral Cooperation Programme of our German Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2024.
Starting as a very basic training centre in August 2014, the AKTC has now developed into a training and crop production demonstration institution that is well recognised and appreciated by the Zambian Ministry of Agriculture, our farmer trainees as well as by students and lecturers from Zambian agricultural education institutions. Since 2023, the AKTC is a listed training institution under TEVETA (Technical Education, Vocational, and Entrepreneurship Training Authority) and our experts are advising agricultural universities and colleges in the development of their curricula. Further, since 2023, the AKTC is the first and only institution in Zambia to offer a tractor-driving license, in cooperation with the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) with two licensed instructors at the AKTC.
The total number of training-man-days has reached approx. 20,000 by the end of last year. A remarkable achievement, especially when considering the fact that trainings are mainly carried out by our long-term senior and junior expert team, who also have to cultivate more than 100 ha of land for practical demonstrations. Since the demand for our practical modular trainings is getting much higher than we can cope with, it is now planned to train young trainers and build up a mobile AKTC training team that can then disseminate AKTC knowledge and experiences into other regions of Zambia.
RAINES model farm
Next to our demonstrations comparing conventional and soil-conserving cultivation practices on currently 82 ha of irrigated land, the AKTC has started in 2019 the CAFM (Climate Adapted Farming Methods) sub-project on 27 ha of dryland. Trials in mechanized conservation agriculture were implemented in collaboration with the University of Hohenheim and have now clearly demonstrated that climate-resilient practices with minimum or no-tillage are economically interesting and can even produce higher yields at lower costs, especially in dry years. Recently, the trials have been expanded to include the cultivation of a cover crop in the crop rotation and the first economic analysis is expected later in 2024.
As of 2024, the AKTC is now venturing into additional activities with our new sub-project RAINES (Regenerative Agriculture to improve Nutrition and Environmental Sustainability). For this new activity our project partner, the Golden Valley Agricultural research Trust (GART) has made available additional 11 ha of land on which various practices of regenerative agriculture and agroforestry will be demonstrated in rain-fed agriculture. Agro-ecological approaches are also to be trialed here in cooperation with the German Julius-Kühn-Institute. Networking and exchange with new interested partners from neighboring countries is envisaged.
As part of the agro-ecological approach, we have started biodiversity monitoring on the AKTC site (e.g. birds and bats). This monitoring will be carried out at regular intervals to see if and how the new cultivation practices affect the fauna on the project site.
The team is looking forward to future development and cooperation in the field of agro-ecology with new project partners. With the envisaged long-term perspective of project continuation until 2028/29, we will have many opportunities to try out new things and make the AKTC an even more interesting and attractive Knowledge Centre with a regional outreach.
For further information:
Helmut Anschütz – Team Leader : helmut.anschuetz [at] gopa-afc.de
Tesa Weiss – Project Manager: tesa.weiss [at] gopa-afc.de