Dorcas Lukwesa CAMFED Association Zambia - Social Venture Challenge Video - Aquaponics - July 2021 - Video Transcript
Dorcas, CAMFED Association Member, Zambia In many farming communities in Zambia, smallholder farmers, particularly women, are the worst hit by climate change, even though they are the least contributors to this issue. Increasing extreme weather conditions, such as droughts and floods, they are already threatening livelihoods in many of these families. These disasters and jobs in agriculture production linked to climate change are making women and girls particularly vulnerable to early marriages and hunger. Therefore, climate-smart solutions are more crucial than before.
My name is Dorcas Lukwesa, a founder of Mobile Aquaponics, a social venture dedicated to providing a resilient response to climate change through an innovative farming techniques, aquaponics. Aquaponics is a cultivation of fish and vegetables in a constructed, recirculating ecosystem which utilizes naturally occurring bacteria cycles to convert fish waste to plant nutrients. This system uses 90% less water than traditional farming. It is 70% more productive, does not require soil, it does not have weeds and has fewer pests and can be built at any scale, anywhere in the world.
At Mobile Aquaponics, we seek to promote food security under climate crisis to reduce poverty in Zambia. Through our demonstrative urban farm at CAMFED climate-smart center, we hope to offer agribusiness training to over 2000 farmers in the next five years. We hope to create 20 new employment opportunities for women and youth to enable farming to generate extra income and encourage a collaborative community driven approach.