Zambia - Carbon Forest Zambia

Located in 10 hub districts in the Western Province of Zambia, this agroforestry project led by Carbon Forest Zambia was established in 2017 by the World Bank, but not as a project intended to generate carbon credits. The World Bank gave farmers seedlings to plant in 2017-2018 with no training or access to markets and then left the project area.

Carbon Forest Zambia has a strong presence in the project area and saw trees dying, systems failing, and farmers struggling. So in 2020, they saved the project by offering training and access to markets to the farmers and helped them plant more trees to achieve a successful agroforestry system. However, they knew they would need carbon finance to support farmers in an ongoing manner and assist more farmers and existing farmers (most of whom still had hectares of empty land) to plant trees and receive the training they needed.

In brief, the goals of this project are clear: combat climate change with carbon sequestration by cashew trees, reduce deforestation within Zambia by offering an incentive to keep trees in the ground long-term, reduce food insecurity by including fruit and nut trees in the agroforestry design, and improve livelihoods within the community through additional income from carbon credits.

Exploring the project aims in more detail, the project seeks to increase annual income from both agricultural production and carbon sequestration, while improving soil quality, biodiversity, and the microclimate around the farm itself. The overall farm health improvement and the livelihood of the farmer and the farmer’s entire community is top of the farmers’ agenda to transition to agroforestry.

During meetings with the community, farmers and village leaders, Carbon Forest Zambia discovered that the effort and resources for farmers to plant these trees had been underestimated and that farmers required an additional incentive to continue planting trees or maintain their agroforestry systems. The carbon credits reward farmers for their investment and are sufficiently additional as they will encourage existing farmers to maintain and upgrade their agroforestry systems, entice new farmers who are yet to transition, help increase household income, improve cashew production, processing, and marketing, and facilitate the planting of new trees that would otherwise have been overlooked.

With financing support from ZICB (Zambia Industrial Commercial Bank), smallholder farmers are taking control of their farms, their livelihoods, and their future.

The carbon credits farmers receive for the trees planted as part of the project are ex-post based. They will only be derived from one year before CRU issuance.

Full project documentation available upon request.