Lusafarmz Zambia Limited is a privately owned company based in Chingola Zambia. It was established in December 2020 for the sole purpose of building tools for smallholder farmers and transforming the Small-scale Agricultural sector. The company is owned by Kapanda Phiri and Christopher Kilpatrick with a 50-50 share split in the partnership. Kapanda has a background in Business management and smallholder farming, and Christopher has a background in Steel fabrication and manufacturing, this created a great platform to birth the Push Plow.
In April 2021, our tool development started and since then we have gone through 4 models of Push Plows. Our recently improved version currently has 4 different attachments namely: Cultivator teeth used to loosen the soil, a Ripper used to rip farrows for planting, a V rake for barring the farrows, and lastly a weeder blade- used to weed between rolls of crops. More attachments are currently being researched and developed. Our product range is growing to accommodate handheld tools that are not on the market.
In October 2021, Lusafarmz was awarded a ZAR35 000 grant under Yali Southern Africa, sponsored by the MasterCard Foundation to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). We have succeeded in doing that and not only for our Push Plow but for other handheld tools as well. All this was achieved with the boost we got from the grant funding.
We have attended a few Agric Expos in rural Zambia where farmers have shown great interest in our tool. Most smallholder farms want to buy our tools through a cooperative and we are working closely with them to set up a payment plan that will satisfy both parties..
Training farmers on the proper use of our tools through field demos is an ongoing program. The more the farmers learn about the correct way of using our tools, the more excited they get to buy our products. We also get feedback from them to help us develop a better product that they can feel a part of.
Our products are now on the market with a few early adopters taking a keen interest in them. We are currently servicing 2 provinces in Zambia namely: North Western and Copperbelt Provinces and have managed to sell 30 units thus far. The goal is to introduce our initiative to smallholder farmers country-wide. With your support, we can grow faster as a business.