Drought prompts call for Kitwe City Region Food System interventions
Kitwe is the third largest city in Zambia, situated in the Copperbelt region in the north-west of the country. It was one of the pilot cities in the first phase of the City Region Food Systems (CRFS) Programme, which ran from 2015 to 2018. The Kitwe CRFS includes all ten districts that comprise Copperbelt Province, where the majority of the food consumed in the city is produced.
The CRFS assessment raised a number of concerns, including – among others – levels of food insecurity, access to food, healthy diets and food safety; access to land; and environment and natural resource degradation due to inappropriate use of agrichemicals and pollution from mining.
“Food insecurity is even worse now that there has been a drought,” said Jacob Mwitwa, Professor of Natural Resources Management in Kapasa Makasa University, who led the CRFS assessment. The drought, which began in January 2024, has affected 84 out of the country’s 116 districts, with devastating impacts on agriculture.
In February, President Hakainde Hichilema declared a national emergency and predicted that more than a million families would be affected. The Ministry of Defense formed a drought disaster and emergency response team to coordinate actions, including suspension of wheat cultivation and planting of irrigated maize, and diversion of available water sources for farm irrigation.
“The effect of the drought on agricultural production, and the food system as a whole, requires an understanding in order to develop interventions”, said Mwitwa. “It is also important to establish interventions that enable the food system to be resilient when future climate shocks, such as drought or excessive rainfall, occur.”
Mwitwa added that declining rainfall in the south of Zambia, over the long-term, has prompted climate-related migration to the Copperbelt region. “This has put even more pressure on land, and market competition has also increased,” he said.
Mobilizing an engaged stakeholder base
The CRFS project in Kitwe, Zambia, was instrumental in raising awareness about food system issues in Zambia’s Copperbelt, according to Mwitwa. Establishing a stakeholder engagement platform during the project created a basic understanding of Kitwe’s CRFS and its challenges that continues six years on. “Although the platform no longer exists, those stakeholders who were part of that platform are involved in most of the activities that take place in the food system. They want to engage and speak to other practitioners or interest groups in the food system.”
Mwitwa believes there is also a need for systematic development of interventions that respond to the recommendations drawn up through the multistakeholder process of the CRFS project, and similar projects that have been implemented since. “We have had changes in government, changing priorities, and some activities that have not been completed.”
Nevertheless, progress has been made against some of the recommendations over the last six years. For instance, the Ministry of Agriculture has carried out capacity building for farmers in agroprocessing, product labelling, grading, and packaging. Some banks have established loan systems for farmers, although access remains unequal due to collateral requirements.
Other recommendations have seen little progress, however. These include the proposal to create a database for value chain actors to reduce information asymmetry between financial institutions and actors; the promotion of contract farming through knowledge sharing platforms; and engagement of research institutions to develop more economic methods of value addition for small producers.
Global crisis ignites youth interest
In addition to the drought, the Kitwe CRFS has been affected by several shocks since 2018. “Most of the food production is by small producers who are very vulnerable to shocks,” said Mwitwa. For instance, small producers faced severe input supply shortages and higher costs during COVID-19, since Zambia sources over 90% of its inputs from outside. At the same time, restrictions on movement affected their ability to reach markets to sell their produce.
These impacts have been compounded by challenges in the post-COVID era, such as the war in Ukraine and the global economic crisis. Nonetheless, the difficult economic context may have contributed to more youth joining the agricultural workforce.
“We have seen an improvement in the number of young people who have gone into agriculture, including poultry production and fish farming,” Mwitwa said, though he added the caveat that there is no research data to back this up.
“This has been primarily driven by loss of employment or lack of availability of employment for new graduates or for people who have been to college. Understanding, and acting upon, the impacts of drought on agriculture would help retain these young people in the farming sector.”