Zambia Targets Agrifood Overhaul with Public-Private Tech Push
Zambia is moving away from fragmented, piece-meal agricultural policies in favor of a unified national strategy aimed at building a more resilient food supply chain, according to architects of the country’s new farming framework.
The landlocked southern African nation is deploying a coordinated, systems-based approach that bridges the gap between state directives and commercial realities. The linchpin of this strategy is the Comprehensive Agriculture Transformation Support Programme (CATSP), a landmark initiative designed to integrate agricultural production with nutrition, water management, and the broader rural economy.
For decades, sector-by-sector interventions often left smallholders isolated and commercial operations siloed. The new model seeks to establish an interconnected network using a “hub-and-spoke” blueprint, linking large-scale commercial operations with smaller farming communities to improve knowledge sharing and market access.
“We have very ambitious goals and they are very much achievable, as long as we can unify and agree to move together,” said Chisanga Mwamba, a key architect who supported the development of CATSP, speaking on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Agrifood Talks podcast.
The strategy leans heavily on corporate-state cooperation, featuring fresh public-private partnerships focused on livestock disease control, streamlined fertilizer and seed inputs, and digital infrastructure. Among the technological rollouts is an artificial intelligence-powered farming application tailored for smallholder farmers to diagnose crop diseases and optimize yields in real time.
The success of the transition hinges largely on repairing historically fraught relationships between the state and the private sector. Initial signs point to improving sentiment on the ground, driven by clearer regulatory alignment.
“Together, they explore how Zambia is moving from fragmented, sector-by-sector interventions to a truly systems-based approach one that brings government, farmers, and civil society into the same conversation,” noted Stewart Parkes, director of Cropit Farming Limited, an enterprise with over three decades of commercial farming experience in the region.
As climate volatility increasingly threatens Sub-Saharan yields, Zambia’s aggressive push into integrated agrifood systems represents a critical test case for whether policy coordination and agritech can insulate emerging market economies from food insecurity.
