The Conservation Farming Unit (Z-CFU) was established in 1995 to develop and promote the adoption of Conservation Farming (CF) and Conservation Agriculture (CA), within Zambia’s small-scale farming community.

Conventional cultivation practices, including deforestation and burning, were unsustainable and were leading to significant environmental degradation and inadequate food supply in some areas of Zambia.  In order to establish increased productivity and improve food security, Z-CFU introduced CF and CA technologies to over 180,000 small-scale farmers. The aim is to increase this figure to 250,000 farmers by 2011.