Agribusiness Expo

We will have the Agribusiness Expos starting in May 2023, with the theme, “Establishing links for profitable farming.” The expos will link small-scale and emerging farmers to agribusiness vendors, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and other stakeholders, including the government, that provide products and services designed to help small-scale and emerging farmers increase production and productivity, diversity, resilience, and profit.

The Eighth National Development Plan (8NDP) positions agriculture as one of the critical sectors for achieving economic transformation and job creation. Agriculture employs nearly 70% of the labour force and is the primary income source for small-scale farmers.^[1] Although small-scale farmers feed the nation, producing about 80% of its food supply^[2], they are disproportionately poor. About 82% of the poor in Zambia live in rural areas[3] and practice small-scale farming. Challenges that keep small-scale farmers poor include a lack of market information, absence of finance, poor pricing mechanisms, underdeveloped value chains, lack of information and access to inputs, inadequate extension services, poor storage facilities, transportation challenges, lack of knowledge of and access to irrigation techniques, effects of climate change among other challenges. Small-scale and emerging farmers must know that solutions to the above challenges exist.

The expos will connect small-scale and emerging farmers to agribusinesses, NGOs and government institutions that offer solutions to the abovementioned challenges for mutual benefit. The result will be increased food security and nutrition, better living standards, especially among women, children and men living in extreme poverty in rural areas, job creation, flourishing agribusinesses, and a thriving economy.