Zambia, poised to be a significant regional food basket and trade corridor, currently faces a stark reality: over 14.2 million people (72%) were food insecure by 2024, accompanied by a concerning 32.3% average stunting rate. While various factors contribute to this situation, recurrent and intensifying climate change shocks stand as a primary driver, leading to a drastic 50-75% decline in crop production.
This vulnerability is further amplified by underutilized agricultural potential. Despite possessing 43.6 million hectares of arable land, only 15% is cultivated, with a mere 5.7% benefiting from irrigation. Compounding these issues are low crop productivity due to limited infrastructure, constrained market access, financial limitations, and inadequate extension services (with a challenging 1:1,200 extensionist-to-farmer ratio).
However, within these challenges lies a significant opportunity for transformation. The Zambian government recognizes the pivotal role of a competitive agri-food sector in driving economic transformation and job creation, a vision clearly articulated in the 8th National Development Plan 2022-26 (8NDP), which anchors Zambia’s overarching Vision 2030 to become a prosperous middle-income country. The Comprehensive Agriculture Transformation Support Programme 2024 – 2033 (CATSP) serves as the strategic anchor for this plan, aiming to enhance production and productivity in key priority value chains, aligning with the Dakar II Compact’s focus on maize, soybeans, and wheat by 2028. These commodities are strategically prioritized due to their significant contribution to national food security, economic growth potential, and alignment with national development objectives.
To therefore, effectively tackle the complex challenge of food insecurity in Zambia and inform impactful policy reforms, a cohesive and multi-faceted approach involving government bodies, farmers (especially smallholder farmers – SHFs), the private sector, civil society organizations, research institutions, and development partners, is essential to create a sustainable and resilient agri-food system. This is can be achieved by focusing on key areas for Multi-Stakeholder Interventions, including:
Creating a Robust Enabling Environment for Agricultural Competitiveness. This foundational effort necessitates the government’s diligent implementation of the CATSP and the development of strategic flagship programs aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of Zambia’s agri-food sector. This requires proactively reforming pertinent macro and micro-sector policies to streamline regulations, incentivize investment, and foster innovation. For effective implementation, strengthening the intricate web of sector coordination mechanisms among various ministries, agencies, and stakeholders, alongside significantly enhancing the operational capacity of both state and non-state actors, are paramount.
Furthermore, a strategic investment in advanced data and analytics infrastructure will provide the crucial evidence base for informed policy decisions, effective program design, and monitoring of progress. Complementing these governmental actions, development partners such as AGRA play a vital catalytic role by providing crucial technical and financial support for these policy endeavors and by actively facilitating the mobilization of essential public and private sector resources towards the goals of CATSP and enhanced sector competitiveness.
Building upon this foundation, enhancing sector competitiveness and ensuring robust market access, particularly for smallholder farmers who constitute the majority of producers, requires a strategic policy focus on streamlining trade processes and dismantling non-tariff barriers that impede agricultural commerce within Zambia and across regional trade corridors. Fundamentally, establishing clear and consistently applied quality standards and certifications for both domestic and regional market development, will enable Zambian produce to compete effectively. Policies that actively support the development of affordable and accessible agricultural finance, coupled with effective risk mitigation strategies tailored to the needs of smallholder farmers and agribusinesses, are therefore important to stimulate greater investment across the value chain.
Moreover, strategic investments in infrastructure that strengthens market linkages, including feeder roads, storage facilities, and market information systems, are key for efficiently connecting producers with consumers and reducing transaction costs. The private sector’s ingenuity in developing innovative market-based models that directly link farmers to reliable markets and deploying advanced post-harvest technologies to minimize losses, alongside the creation of tailored financial products by financial institutions, can significantly enhance overall market efficiency and reduce risks for all actors. Recognizing the pivotal role of farmers’ organizations, policies aimed at strengthening their capacity to aggregate produce, negotiate fair prices, and adopt best practices will empower producers and ensure their greater participation in remunerative markets.
Achieving long-term food security equally demands policy support for innovation and the adoption of sustainable, climate-resilient practices to mitigate the impact of climate change. This necessitates policies that actively promote the work of research institutions in developing and disseminating climate-resilient and nutrient-dense crop varieties tailored to Zambia’s diverse agro-ecological conditions. Facilitating the efficient commercialization and widespread accessibility of these high-quality seeds through effective last-mile delivery systems, often spearheaded by private sector initiatives and supported by enabling policies, will be crucial for adoption at scale.
Government and development partners should then prioritize policies that support the scaling up of proven sustainable farming models, including climate-smart agriculture, conservation agriculture, and efficient water management techniques like improved irrigation scheme management and the appropriate adoption of mechanization and digitalization in farming operations. Recognizing the vital role of knowledge transfer, policies aimed at strengthening extension services with well-trained personnel, leveraging digital tools, and promoting platforms for knowledge sharing on successful resilience-building practices are essential for driving widespread adoption of improved techniques and enhancing adaptive capacity at the farm level.
Finally, achieving impactful change necessitates targeted value chain development for key national priority crops, particularly maize, soybeans, and wheat as identified in the CATSP, alongside a strategic emphasis on diversification for enhanced resilience and nutrition. For maize, policies should prioritize the transition towards more resilient farming systems that can withstand climate variability, improve farmers’ access to quality inputs and effective extension services focused on climate-smart practices, promote the adoption of context-appropriate mechanization and digitalization to improve efficiency, and advocate for stable and fair pricing mechanisms that incentivize production.
Critically, policies and investments aimed at significantly reducing the high levels of post-harvest losses (currently at 30%) are paramount to ensuring greater food availability. For soybeans, policy interventions should focus on enhancing access to quality and affordable inputs (including climate-resilient varieties and inoculants), mitigating post-harvest losses through improved management practices and infrastructure, expanding access to finance and well-functioning markets, and addressing specific production challenges such as disease management through research and extension support. Concurrently, promoting crop diversification through policies that support access to improved seeds and robust market linkages for nutritious and resilient alternative crops like beans, sorghum, cowpeas, and groundnuts is essential for enhancing long-term food security, improving dietary diversity, and creating additional income-generating opportunities for farmers, thereby building overall resilience to shocks.
Looking ahead, addressing food insecurity and building a competitive agri-food sector in Zambia requires a long-term commitment and a coordinated effort from all stakeholders. By fostering an enabling environment, enhancing sector competitiveness, boosting productivity and resilience, and strategically developing key value chains, Zambia can transform its agricultural sector and achieve its goal of becoming a regional food basket and a key trade corridor. Continuous dialogue, shared learning, and mutual accountability among all actors will ensure that interventions are effective, sustainable, and ultimately lead to a food-secure and prosperous future for all Zambians. The national targets set forth, such as significantly increasing the production of maize and soybeans by 2028, are achievable with a unified and strategic multi-stakeholder approach underpinned by sound policy reforms.