Zambia must expand agro business sector to meet food demands

Fri, 06 Oct 2017 13:49:21 +0000

By BUUMBA CHIMBULU

ZAMBIA’S food demand is estimated to grow to over US$25 billion in the next 15 years from the current US$8 billion, hence the need to expand the agribusiness industry, says Trade and Competitiveness Practice manager (World Group), Dahlia Khalifa.

Ms. Khalifa said Zambia, compared with many African countries already had a relatively well-developed agribusiness industry with over 400, 000 smallholder households linked to agribusiness firms, and that entrepreneurs were also investing in agro-processing. Ms. Khalifa said commercial farming in Zambia offered productivity gains commensurate with other sectors.

“The regional and urban demand for food has been strong and is estimated to grow exponentially. Based on the income, urbanisation, and population growth trends, we estimate that food demand in Zambia could grow more than threefold in the next 15 years, to over US$25 billion (from around US$8 billion today),” she said. Ms. Khalifa said Zambia could achieve import substitution following a rise in food demand in the region and capture a larger share of this growing pie by strengthening the pillars of competitiveness for the agribusiness industry.

She explained at the launch of the Zambia Agribusiness and Trade Project in Lusaka this week that the country could take advantage of the development through Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) who made up 90 percent of the agribusiness.

“While demand is on the rise, meeting it with imports is increasingly more difficult due to the high costs associated; retailers are eager to buy locally in a wide range of categories, if quality standards and quantity requirements can be reliably met by the local producers – both farmers and downstream agribusinesses,” she said.

She, however, said Zambia needed to address a number of critical regulatory and institutional challenges that constrained the SMEs sector’s performance, such as competition in key sub-sectors, or logistics efficiency. Ms. Khalifa said this should be done while supporting farmers and SMEs to adopt appropriate know-how, invest in productivity, and connect to large and lucrative commercial markets across the country, region, and abroad.   “Raising emerging farmers and growth-oriented SMEs to the next level of competitiveness could go beyond the direct income and employment benefits, and have an important demonstration effect – which is that we can sustain and accelerate growth while at the same time broadening its reach,” Ms. Khalifa said.