Together we are nourishing school communities, building climate-smart livelihoods, improving resilience to climate shocks, and leading the future of sustainable growth
Despite contributing negligibly to greenhouse emissions, they are the first to feel the impact of climate change as they struggle to feed their families. Increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather, such as droughts and floods, is already threatening the livelihoods of farming communities. It particularly affects women, who grow much of the continent’s food, and compounds the “resource gap” they face compared to male farmers in terms of access to land, training, advisory services and finance.
Climate disasters and drops in agricultural production linked to climate change make women and girls particularly vulnerable to hunger and exploitation, including early marriage as a negative coping mechanism for poor families. Climate change pushes girls out of schools, destroys school infrastructure, and accelerates the cycle of poverty.
Investing in female farmers increases resilience to climate shocks, nourishing school communities, protecting food supplies, and lowering carbon emissions.
Educated women can help their communities to cope with the effects of climate change, and lead on climate-smart agriculture, tackling hunger while protecting our planet, and keeping children in school.
They can launch sustainable food businesses, become role models for change, and – as local, national and global activists and policymakers – make the world a better place for everyone.
CAMFED Agriculture Guides are young women who have completed school with CAMFED support and who have expertise in sustainable agriculture.
They draw on the knowledge they gained at secondary school – including the creativity, problem-solving and leadership skills cultivated through CAMFED’s school-based Learner Guide program – and combine it with “green economy” technical expertise.
Using a cascade model, these young women are reaching thousands of people in rural Africa with techniques, information and affordable technologies for climate-smart agriculture, combining Indigenous methods with innovation. They focus on the ‘forgotten farmers’ among them – smallholders without access to adequate knowledge or finance to increase the productivity of their land or look after natural resources. These include Parent Support Groups, formed to keep vulnerable children in their communities in school by growing food for school meals, for example.
Agriculture Guides are helping to raise productivity, combat hunger, build resilience to climate shocks, and lower greenhouse emissions, while tackling gender inequity in farming. The approach has huge potential to scale.
Watch as Naomi, a CAMFED Association member and trained Agriculture Guide, gives a tour of our climate-smart teaching farm, which spans 254 hectares of land in Chinsali, Zambia.
The land was gifted to CAMFED Association members by the late Senior Chief Nkula, and is now operating with 150 women working in different roles – from beekeeping, to crop cultivation, to poultry and fish farming.
Naomi and other Agriculture Guides in our Sisterhood, the CAMFED Association, are leading climate action and education in the rural communities surrounding the farm, and joining forces with Learner Guides to bring climate education into the classroom.
Read the accompanying article on The Evening Standard websiteAgriculture Guides train smallholders in sustainable farming methods, supporting their communities to adapt to the effects of climate change and improve yields. They respect traditional knowledge, combined with innovation, using materials readily available in local communities to implement techniques such as:
These approaches make effective use of scarce water resources, reduce surface water evaporation, improve soil nutrition and its ability to store carbon, and increase productivity by enabling multiple harvests on a single plot.
Agriculture Guides also work with schools, government and community groups to provide nourishing school meals, protect trees and biodiversity, construct cleaner cook stoves, heat water using solar power and plastic bottles, provide pot in pot refrigeration, recycle materials, and reduce waste.
CAMFED Agriculture Guides have won the confidence and support of local government Agricultural Extension Officers, who invite them to train alongside them.
The challenges women and girls in Malawi are facing makes me feel so sad, but also galvanizes me into action. We are teaching local farmers about climate-smart farming techniques like tree planting, intercropping (planting different crops and trees together) and mulching. We are explaining how to harness natural resources like water to use in times of drought, reduce risk of flooding, and improve the hydrology of the soil.Malumbo, Climate-Smart Agriculture Expert, Malawi
We are accelerating the growth of our Agriculture Guide program, supporting communities to build resilience to climate shocks and reduce malnutrition by equipping young women with the skills to develop thriving agricultural enterprises.
By the end of 2022, 772 CAMFED Association members had trained as climate-smart Agriculture Guides.
Each trained Agriculture Guide reaches at least 10 young women in her local district with training in climate-smart agriculture. Together they reach hundreds more community members and farmers, helping build climate resilience in their communities
By the end of 2022, Agriculture Guides and CAMFED Association Community Trainers had reached more than 100,000 people with vital information on climate-smart farming techniques.
I was motivated to become a climate activist after witnessing how droughts and floods affect not just my own community, but the communities and businesses of CAMFED Association members across Zambia. Now I’m equipped with knowledge to educate others on the causes of climate change and help them to build resilience to changing weather patterns.Chise, Agriculture and Learner Guide, Zambia
CAMFED’s Agriculture Guide program was recognized with the 2019 UN Global Climate Action Award. It highlights the leadership of members of our CAMFED Association, our powerful peer support network of young women who are spearheading action on climate change in Africa.
Read about CAMFED’s UN Climate Action AwardIt is our pleasure to award CAMFED’s breakthrough initiative. Their project serves as a beacon, guiding us towards a more resilient future for all. Their project trains young women from poor, marginalized farming communities across rural Africa – and in turn provides a shining example of a scalable, effective climate solution, that’s led by young women.Niclas Svenningsen, Manager of the UN Climate Change Global Climate Action Program
Learn more from some of CAMFED's leaders in sustainable agriculture
Esnath is a core trainer of CAMFED Agriculture Guides, and an expert cricket farmer, bringing sustainable protein to her community.
Dorcas is a sustainable agriculture expert from Zambia who is developing mobile Aquaponics units to support community nutrition and resilience to climate change.
Agriculture Guida Mwanaisha demonstrates simple interventions – like using manure and growing crops in rotation – to increase yields while protecting the soil.
Harriet trains climate-smart Agriculture Guides, and, together with other young women and community partners, is growing CAMFED’s first demo farm.
Beauty, whose climate-smart farm helps feed her school community, inspired the CAMFED Garden at the UK’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Miriam is an Agricultural Extension Worker, bringing her expertise to rural communities (and electricity to her village)
Malumbo’s learning journey has taken her across continents. Now she’s using her expertise to build community resilience to climate change.
The founder of Chasi Foods, Forget is supporting farmers to reduce food waste and increase profit by drying and preserving fruit and vegetables.
While studying to be a doctor, Cindy’s greenhouse business is helping to ensure fresh, local produce is available year-round in her community.
Watch videos, download brochures and read news articles about CAMFED's Climate-smart Agriculture Guides
Christina T. Kwauk PhD – a gender, education, and climate change specialist – examined our development of this bespoke climate education program in her report Advancing Climate Justice Through Girls’ Education at CAMFED, and found our approach resulted in a program that is contextually relevant, practical and sensitive to the needs of the girls, young women, and communities we support.
This booklet catalogs the activities of CAMFED’s pioneering climate-smart agriculture champions — some of the first young women to train as sustainable agriculture experts with CAMFED’s support. Today they are continuing to lead action and cascade their knowledge to thousands more women in some of the most marginalized areas of Africa.
After gifting 304 ha of land to our young women leaders in recognition of their efforts and potential as agriculture entrepreneurs, Senior Chief Nkula launched CAMFED’s first large-scale climate-smart demonstration farm in Chinsali, Zambia. The aim of the farm is to be a climate-smart teaching hub for the area, helping communities to grow resilient crops and scale up sustainable farming efforts across Zambia.
The CAMFED Garden at the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower shone a spotlight on the life-changing effects of supporting girls in Africa to go to school, and young women to start climate-smart agricultural businesses after graduating, nourishing their school communities.
The garden lives on at the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, supporting our campaign to launch tens of thousands of female-led, climate-smart agricultural businesses.
Betty Schwab $25
Jonathan Brody $40
Bonne Mogulescu $150
William Wiedmann $150
Adrianna Timmons $360
Lizbeth Garcia $10
Niall Doherty $370
Nicola Riley €300
John Benson £20
Gareth Waldram £342
Greta Bonnaud £630
Benj Schneider £1600
Martha King $1000
Lara Kenny £5
David Wells $15
