Lucinda, a rural woman from the Rufunsa district located in the Lusaka province Zambia, was made aware of an indigenous seed bank exchange program through her family relations who lived a few kilometres away, a WEZ member. In the area of Mukonka area in Kapwashi village, a women’s group approached the already existing seed bank that had been running since 2015/2016 farming season with Women Environs in Zambia (Chongwe-Rufunsa). The seed was distributed in December 2020 and Lucinda among 19 other women were given 20kg bag of cowpea seed and 10kg bag of sunflower seed increasing the total number of women to 90 and number of villages to 5. As a group, they were each expected to ‘deposit’ back into the seed bank exactly double what they had been given after they harvested to ensure that seed was always available to be used by other rural women.

Five months later, in May, Lucinda and the other women, due to good rainfall of 2020/2021, managed to harvest a yield enough to replace double what they had been given and was able to sell and use the remaining yield to produce cooking oil and for food consumption. She and the other women appreciated the initiative and spoke on how the seed had performed well (produced a high yield). They also shared a few of their challenges in growing the seed. They cited the need for a sunflower Chigayo (solar oil pressing machine) to be established in their area to help with cooking oil production as the nearest one was in Nyimba 247 km away from Rufunsa. Being located behind a mountain, the road is quite bad and they also spoke on the need for a better road to help transport their produce.

Lucinda invited other younger women in her area to be part of the group and these were assimilated and 30 women have since joined the group. In July 2021, a pass-on seed program will be conducted to give seed to the additional 30 new members who joined in May.  She also suggested having the seed bank expand to include other types of indigenous seed that thrive in their area such as early mature Kafwamba maize seed, Mbambara nuts and Kadononga nuts. She, as were all the other women, is highly grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the Women Environs in Zambia and looks forward to have more women in her area join and be a part of the seed bank program.