The Rural and Agricultural Development Research Program observes that growth of the agricultural sector has always been considered important for attainment of Zambia’s long term growth vision. For instance, in its Vision 2030, Zambia hopes to have an efficient, competitive, sustainable and export-led agricultural sector that assures food security and increased incomes by 2030. This vision for the sector has consistently been carried through in all the four national development plans (NDPs), with the Seventh National Development Plan (7NDP) having the agricultural sector, together with tourism, manufacturing and mining, as the key sectors that have been targeted as the key sectors that will help to achieve the plan’s goal of creating a diversified and resilient economy for sustained growth and economic transformation. This is because the country is relatively well-endowed with natural resources such as land, water and fertile soils that support agricultural activities. However, despite the immense potential, the agricultural sector’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has averaged 18 percent since the 1990s. Real growth rates in the sub-sectors have significantly fluctuated in the past four decades mainly due to high dependence on rain-fed production, low investment in the sector and failure to strategically position the sector in line with its comparative advantage.
Priority Areas
In line with the identified challenges in the sector, the research focus for the ARDP will concentrate on the following research areas that are of direct benefit to the sector and small-scale farmers in particular:
- The role of agriculture in national food security and child nutrition
- Agricultural Commodity Value Chains and Smallholder Market Access
- Poverty and Agricultural Policy
- The role of private/public partnerships in enhancing agricultural productivity
- Rural finance and rural livelihoods
- Drought power and agricultural productivity
- Agricultural diversification
- Capacity building of individuals and institutions in the sector
