AGRICULTURAL POLICIES AND FOOD SECURITY OF SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN ZAMBIA

Abstract

This article explores the food security of Zambian small-scale farmers by reviewing government policies and programs in the 1990s and 2000s that affected farmer food security, with a particular focus on subsidized input transfer programs. Economic reforms to liberalize the economy in the 1990s, including liberalization of agricultural marketing, resulted in stagnation of maize production due to decreased use of fertilizer. Zambia implemented two subsidized input transfer programs in the 2000s, the Fertilizer Support Program and the Food Security Pack. These programs succeeded in increasing fertilizer use and maize output, but these increases incurred huge budgetary and administrative costs. As small-scale farmers grow maize and other crops that rely on rain-fed farming, their maize outputs are volatile, and subsidized input transfer can result in fi nancing crop failure. Simplifi ed maize balance sheets for 17 farming households were calculated based on fi eld research at one suburban-area village. The majority of the sampled farmers recorded defi cits on their maize balance sheets. They purchased maize with the revenues from output sales from dambo gardening and/or from petty vegetable sales.