Kamutamba Farm Socio-Economic, Climate Smart Farm project

Since 2012 public hospitals in Zambia are no longer allowed to charge patients a fee for using hospital services. This is because the Government wants free medical health care to be available to all Zambians. The Government pays for all hospital personnel costs and provides the most  commonly used medication. 

This is a very positive development to make health care available to all Zambian. However, hospitals, especially those located in rural areas, do not receive sufficient funds to cover all operational and running costs. The hospitals are not able  to cover all costs relating to building and equipment maintenance, transport, food for addmitted patients, bed linen, mosquito nets, fuel and maintenance fort he ambulance, or even all basic medication (as this medication is not sufficiently stocked in Governmental storage facilities, hospitals are forced to  purchase the medicine privately). 

Currently, hospitals in Zambia cover their shortages through NGO or Government donations. However, this assistance is insufficient and unreliable. To nevertheless ensure high quality medical care to poor and needy patients, St Theresa Mission Hospital started in 2014 looking for more independent, sustainable, sources of income.

This resulted in the Kamutamba Project. This project has been set up upon the request of, and in close continuous collaboration with, the St Theresa Mission Hospital IGA board. Together with the hospital the Kamutamba project aims to develop or improve income generating activities (IGAs). These IGAs generate, as the name suggests, income to make medical services accessible to all Zambians. Currently, the Kamutamba project and the hospital have identified and work together  on three IGAs. The Kamutamba kiosk is operational since 2015, the Kamutamba guesthouse since 2016 and it has run profitably.

 Since 2018 research has been done on site to develop Kamutamba farm, focussing on qualitative vegetable and fruit production as well as seedlings and rearing and marketing of resilient village chicken breeds. In 2020 the upscaling of this research project started towards a profitable full scale business. 

The Kamutamba Farm is focusing on climate resilience and resilience to a harsh economy. The main goal is to provide extra income for the St Theresa´s Mission Hospital trough a profitable agricultural business. The social and environmental impact will be creating jobs and alternatives to the widespread monoculture family farming of maize. As  social economic project, the farm will be a learning ground for local farmers and agricultural eduction facilities. Yearly open days and quarterly trainings will give the farmers an insight in the Kamutamba farm practices.