Lie of the land

Zambia, which has ambitions of becoming the food basket of Southern Africa, has struck a deal with SA farmers who will invest US$100m in the country’s agriculture sector within the first year of its operation.

Zambia is one of the biggest maize producers in the region. Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi, SA and Zimbabwe have imported maize from the landlocked country since June 2015.

“Zambia is a small market for its own produce, our target should be the region. So instead of farming for 15m Zambians, let us farm for our neighbouring 200m people,” says Zambia’s high commissioner to SA, Emmanuel Mwamba.

In the 2015/2016 season, Zambia recorded a maize harvest of 2.8 Mt, a 9.7% increase on the 2.6 Mt produced last year, agriculture minister Given Lubinda says.

The SA farmers fall under the umbrella of Agri All Africa, which was born out of Agri-SA, an agriculture union representing commercial farmers. It sent a team of 27 commercial farmers to Zambia last month.

Each farmer in the delegation has an annual turnover of more than $6.5m/year. In Zambia, the farmers plan to invest in sugar cane, wheat, maize, soya beans and livestock, says Agri All Africa CEO Dirk Hanekom.

He says the farmers in the delegation have proved their ability to manage large-scale operations.

The farmers hope to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Zambian National Farmers Union.

Agri All Africa is also looking at farming opportunities in Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Namibia and Sudan. Its farmers already operate in the DRC.

Agri All Africa members con- 15 10 5 0 vened at the farm of board member Charl Senekal in April, where they discussed the countries where they hoped to farm and issues such as minimising risk.

A Zambian government representative also attended the meeting.

With technology, modern equipment, finance and their experience, the farmers will boost Zambia’s efforts to diversify the country’s economy into agriculture and reduce its dependence on mining.

Zambia has not maximised the potential of its agriculture sector. It has just 500 commercial farmers even though it holds up to 40% of southern African water from lakes, rivers and streams. It uses just 10% of its arable land.

Zambia is rich in minerals, among them copper, gold, cobalt and emeralds. Its copper production of about 800,000 t/year is second only to the DRC in Africa. It produces 20% of the world’s emeralds. These are generally cleaner and more saturated in colour than those from Colombia, which produces about 70% of emeralds for the global market.

However, in recent years, the drop in commodity prices has caused government revenue to tumble. Thousands of jobs have been lost. In response, the Zambian government has been forced to look at alternative means of economic diversification, with agriculture as a top priority.

“Mining has proved to be a tricky investment in the sense that there are times of boom and gloom. We want to walk the talk in the area of diversification,” Zambian president Edgar Lungu recently said.

Lungu, Lubinda and officials from the Zambian National Farmers Union are some of the representatives who met the SA farmers. They also met technocrats from other government departments, as well as the Zambia Development Agency and the disaster management & mitigation unit.

Mwamba says Agri All Africa’s decision to invest in Zambia is a vote of confidence in the country and evidence of its political stability.

“They have chosen Zambia for the many qualities that we have — peace, our security, our investment climate, the resources of water and land,” he says.