KING NALUBAMBA
ON A recent visit to one of our villages in Mbeza Ward, I sat with a group of farmers under a large pod mahogany (Mukamba) tree.
They spoke confidently about their cooperative—how it had helped them access farming inputs before the rainy season and the bumper harvest they were expecting this year. But when I asked a simple question: “What does your cooperative do between now and the next rainy season?”—there was silence.
No meetings. No savings. No shared activity. No plan.
That silence is not unique. It reflects a wider problem across Southern Province: cooperatives that exist in name but collapse in practice.
Cooperatives are meant to be engines of rural transformation.
They are designed to pool resources, access finance, invest in productive assets, negotiate better prices, and build wealth for members. Properly run, they can move farmers from subsistence to resilience, from vulnerability to opportunity.
Government understands this.
That is why programmes like the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP), Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC) grants, Constituency Development Fund (CDF), and E-SLIP Matching Grants channel support through cooperatives. The cooperative model is supposed to act as a filter for organisation, accountability, and scalability.
But the system only works if cooperatives are real institutions—not seasonal shells.
Too many cooperatives wake up only before the rains, then go dormant. They are revived to access FISP inputs, then disappear until the next planting season.
No records, no bank accounts, no governance, no year-round activity.
Development partners and financing institutions do not assess intentions—they assess evidence.
They look for bank statements, minutes of meetings, proof of contributions, and governance structures. Without these, cooperatives are excluded from grants, financing, and projects.
The cost is immediate. It is the cooperative in Siavonga that fails to secure irrigation equipment. It is the group in Namwala that misses the chance to acquire a hammer mill or a milk collection centre. It is the youth who remain unemployed because their cooperative cannot demonstrate capacity. It is the farmer who continues to struggle alone instead of benefiting from collective strength.
Opportunity exists. Organisation is missing.
The problem is not only structural—it is behavioural.
Many cooperatives do not hold regular meetings, do not conduct Annual General Meetings, do not keep records, do not operate bank accounts, and do not mobilise member contributions. Most critically, they do not think of themselves as businesses.
Cattle farming has taught me something important: what you do not manage, you lose. The same applies to cooperatives. If a cooperative is not governed, it collapses into inactivity. If it does not transact, it becomes invisible. If it does not plan, it cannot grow.
By contrast, where cooperatives are properly organised, the difference is visible. Some groups meet monthly, contribute regularly, and have moved from inputs to assets—acquiring equipment, accessing grants, and building income streams that support members beyond one season.
If we are serious about transforming livelihoods, we must reset the standard of cooperatives in rural areas.
A functional cooperative must, at
minimum:
• operate an active bank account with regular deposits,
• hold monthly meetings with documented minutes,
• conduct Annual General Meetings,
• maintain financial records,
• submit annual returns to the Registrar of Cooperatives,
• have clear leadership structures and defined roles,
• require member contributions or shares,
• engage in year-round economic activity,
• define a clear business focus,
• and invest in training, including grant writing and business management.
This is not bureaucracy. It is the foundation of transformation. Even modest, consistent contributions build financial history—and open doors to opportunities otherwise closed to rural cooperatives with no track record.
Of course, this shift must recognise real conditions: limited financial literacy, irregular income flows, weak record-keeping culture, and dependency on seasonal agriculture. These are not reasons for inaction. They simply define the design of the response.
Traditional leaders cannot remain neutral observers. We are custodians of land, but also of development. We must encourage proper formation and functioning of cooperatives, insist on governance and accountability, support community-level training, and create platforms where cooperatives can learn from one another.
Development does not happen by accident. It happens through organisation.
To every farmer who belongs to a cooperative: do not reduce your cooperative to a seasonal tool for accessing FISP inputs.
If your cooperative is not properly structured and actively managed, you are missing a major opportunity—not just to access government and donor support, but to transform your group into a real engine of income, productivity, and development.
The difference between a struggling group and a thriving one is not luck. It is organisation, discipline, and vision.
Southern Province has the land, the labour, and the institutional pathways required for rural economic growth. In many communities, young people are ready to work, but they need organised platforms. A well-run cooperative can be that platform.
What we need now is structure and execution.
If we get cooperatives right, we unlock financing, productivity, enterprise, and long-term rural transformation. If we do not, we will continue to watch opportunities pass us by, season after season.
The issue is not the availability of support—it is the readiness to organise and sustain it. The responsibility sits with us, and the choice is ours.
The author is chief of the Ila in Namwala and head of The Mbeza Royal Establishment.