How this Catholic charity is helping to feed the hungry in the face of the ravages of climate change

I have travelled in my role as programme officer at Sciaf since 2011, with regular visits to Zambia over the past five years. My visit earlier this year was very different to previous ones, given the President of Zambia had just declared an emergency as a result of drought. 

While in Zambia I travelled to different regions, passing field after field of dried, crisp maize. In towns I saw queues of people waiting to be allowed into supermarkets to buy maize, which was being limited per person. In the shops, people were running and there was a feeling of panic in the air.  

Climate shocks have made farming in Zambia extremely difficult. Community members I spoke to told me that during the last rainy season, usually from November until the end of February, it had rained just ten days. In another community they only received five days of rain. No rain means no crops and no crops means no meals. The year ahead would be filled with hunger. 

In Mongu I met Kashueka, below, a single mother with four children. I met her near her family’s field which was full of dead maize.  

She told me: “Really, we’ve had no food over the past year.”???? 

She spoke of her children not being able to go to school because they were so hungry. This made me think of my children at home who go to school with full bellies. 

Like others in rural Zambia, Kashueka grows all of the crops her family eats. In 2023, her harvest, like so many of her neighbours’, failed due to drought, and there were no jobs nearby to earn money.?? 

Kashueka was forced to pick wild fruits and dig for roots just to put a meal on the table.??She received support through a short-term Sciaf project in early 2024 that provided milled maize, cooking oil and soya. This gave her children the energy to go to school.??? 

This project was meant to fill the gap until the next harvest, but again, the rains didn’t come. Across Zambia communities were hit by severe drought, farmers like Kashueka knew there would have no harvest in May. The crops she had planted died, ravaged by drought.?? 

After I met Kashueka I moved to another village, where I was met by more than 500 people who had come to talk about the challenges they were facing. People spoke of the drought, their worries for the year ahead and asked for support. A number of the people had been supported through the short-term project, but the majority who turned up had not received support so came to ask me for help.  

It was a difficult meeting, months on I can still clearly see peoples’ faces and hear the distress in their voices as they asked how would they and their families survive with no food, and little water. I had very little to offer them in that moment but promised to make sure their messages would be heard when I returned to Scotland, and that I would do everything in my power to try and get them more support. 

On this visit I also visited rural communities in Kabwe, around 400 miles away from Mongu. Sciaf and its partners have been delivering complex farming programmes here for several years. They focus on skills training in organic agriculture, alongside the provision of pigs and goats for natural manure, diversifying crops grown, increasing access to water, and supporting people to make money and even save.??? 

In Kabwe communities had also had little rain, but despite the hunger crisis spreading across the country, I found communities we were supporting coping well. I spoke with many people who told me they had grown enough food for their families for the year ahead. They had access to water thanks to new boreholes; and they have money saved for emergencies. 

The project in Kabwe was guided by Integral Human Development, it saw individuals as a whole, acknowledging their strengths, skills and what they could bring to the project. The project focussed on the personal, social, economic, environmental, political and spiritual needs of families, and supported people to flourish. Families I met were working as a collective, supporting one another and sharing their learning. They told me their quality of life had improved, they had increased access to water and were growing more crops. They were now sharing all that they had learned, as well as crops and money, with those less fortunate in their communities. This project ensured that families were able to survive the drought in Zambia. 

While in Kabwe I met with Billy who was supported by Sciaf. Billy confirmed that he would harvest maize and cassava from the rainy season and that he intended to share this with others in his community. He hadn’t lost any crops because he was using organic manure, and carefully monitoring his fields. 

Billy now has a vegetable garden that is irrigated with a drip irrigation kit and planted drought-resistant maize. Before the project he said he had no means to irrigate, and little knowledge of different crop varieties. He said that he would have been affected very badly if it were not for the support and all he had learnt: “Thank you for the activities and training you have given us, this is now our life. Knowledge is power.” 

This is proof that there can be solutions to global hunger. Please remember Kashueka as you sit around your kitchen table tonight. Thank you.? 

Aisling Gallacher is the Zambia Programme Officer for Sciaf.

Your generous gifts can provide emergency food relief to mothers like Kashueka, to help her feed her family through these toughest of times. Life-changing support can also be provided to families like Billy’s, helping people build a better life for their families and communities, long into the future. Donate here or call 0141 354 5555.