COMACO
COMACO is a Zambian company that is made up of a farmer extension department, a carbon department, and a business department, backed up by a finance and administration department. COMACO has a large NGO driven program on farmers training, environmental conservation and wildlife protection, and about 54% of its income come from such grants.
The business department purchases crops for cash in its operating areas from 60,000 smallholder farmers, transport these crops to central storage sites and manufactures products under the "Its Wild!" brand. The business department is important to the COMACO model as it offers secure fare prices for crops grown and recommended, allows the farmers to gain financial incentives for the input from the extension department and sees greater synergy between the carbon departments goals, the farmer, and the sales of the "Its Wild!" brand. The company has leveraged donor funding for its extension work.
Today COMACO has become a social enterprise of 112 cooperatives representing over 230,000 families across 89 chiefdoms that make conservation profitable.