The past two years are a tribute to Zambian farmers; they have responded admirably to government efforts to promote maize production. But ironically, rural poverty remains stubbornly high despite the fact that the government has spent over 2% of the nation’s gross domestic product in supporting maize production and subsidizing inputs for farmers. Why is it that maize production has increased so impressively without making a serious dent in rural poverty? And what are the lessons for the new government?maize, poverty, Zambia, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty,

Burke, William J.

Chapoto, Antony

Jayne, Thomas S.

Kabaghe, Chance

Mason, Nicole M.

Shipekesa, Arthur M.

English

Research Papers in Economics

1 
 
Summary: The past two years are a tribute to Zambian farmers; they have 
responded admirably to government efforts to promote maize production.  
But ironically, rural poverty remains stubbornly high despite the fact that the 
government has spent over 2% of the nation’s gross domestic product in 
supporting maize production and subsidizing inputs for farmers.  Why is it 
that maize production has increased so impressively without making a serious 
dent in rural poverty?  And what are the lessons for the new government?   
POLICY SYNTHESIS 
FOOD SECURITY RESEARCH PROJECT - ZAMBIA 
Ministry of Agriculture & Cooperatives, Agricultural Consultative Forum, Michigan State University – Lusaka, Zambia 
 No. 48                     (Downloadable at http://wwwaec.msu.edu/agecon/fs2/zambia/index.htm)          November 2011 
 
 
MOUNTAINS OF MAIZE, PERSISTENT POVERTY
 
T.S. Jayne, Nicole Mason, William Burke, Arthur Shipekesa, 
Antony Chapoto, and Chance Kabaghe 
	
 
 
Zambia’s small- and medium-scale farmers 
produced an impressive maize surplus in 2011. 
The marked increase in maize production 
between the mid-2000s and 2011 coincides with 
the scaling-up of the government’s two flagship 
agricultural sector programmes: the Farmer Input 
Support Programme (FISP, formerly known as 
the Fertiliser Support Programme), which 
distributes subsidised inputs to farmers; and the 
purchase of maize at above-market prices 
through the Food Reserve Agency (FRA). 
Together these programmes accounted for over 
60% of the Ministry of Agriculture’s public 
budget over the past five years. They also 
accounted for 90–96% of the total budget 
allocated to the ministry’s Poverty Reduction 
Programmes (PRPs) during the 2006–2011 
budget years. While there are other PRPs, such 
as the Food Security Pack and Programme 
Against Malnutrition, they are dwarfed by the 
FISP and FRA operations, which in budgetary 
terms stand out as Zambia’s main anti-poverty 
programmes. 
 
In spite of all this, rural poverty declined very 
little between 2006 and 2010. Although the rural 
poverty rate declined from 83% in 1998 to 
77.3% in 2004, it was virtually unchanged at 
76.8% in 2006 (CSO 2010). While official 
poverty rate estimates for 2010 have not yet been 
released, preliminary estimates suggest that the 
rural poverty rate remains in the range of 74–
78%.  
 
The government has spent over 2% of the 
nation’s gross domestic product in supporting 
maize production and subsidising inputs for 
farmers. So, why is it that maize production has 
increased so impressively without making a 
serious dent in rural poverty? And how should 
the new PF government be measuring success in 
agriculture?  
 
A Disaggregated Picture: This analysis uses 
data from the 2010/11 Crop Forecast Survey to 
show how maize production has varied 
according to farm size. The Crop Forecast 
Survey is a nationally representative survey 
conducted annually by the government’s Central 
Statistical Office involving roughly 13,500 
small- and medium-scale households. From this 
survey, annual crop production estimates are 
produced each year by the Ministry of 
Agriculture and Cooperatives (now Ministry of 
Agriculture and Livestock). 2 
 
Column A of Table 1 shows the number of 
farmers in five farm size categories. Overall 
Zambia has an estimated 1,471,221 small- and 
medium-scale farmers (‘smallholder’ farmers), 
defined as farmers cultivating between 0.1 and 
20 hectares. Approximately 42% of them are 
cultivating less than one hectare of land; 33.3% 
of the smallholder farms are cultivating 1–2 
hectares; 2.9% are cultivating 5–10 hectares, and 
0.5% are cultivating over 10 hectares (column 
B). Farmers cultivating less than 2 hectares 
accounted for 75% of the total number of 
farmers in Zambia’s smallholder farm sector.  
Column C shows the estimated total maize 
production within each of the farm size 
categories over a ‘baseline’ period (the three 
years covering the 2005/06 to 2007/08 crop 
seasons). Column D shows the estimated maize 
production for these five farm size categories in 
the 2010/11 crop season. Overall, maize 
production increased from an average of 
1,383,735 tonnes in the baseline period to 
2,786,896 tonnes in the 2010/11 season.
 
 
Table 1.  Smallholder Maize Production Growth from the Baseline Period (2005/06–2007/08) to 
2010/11, by Farm Size Category 
   Total  smallholder  maize  production 
Total area 
cultivated 
(maize + all other 
crops) 
Average number 
of farms,  
2005/06 to   
2007/08,   
and 2010/11 
% of 
farms 
Annual mean 
during 2005/06 
to 2007/08 
baseline period 
(MT) 
2010/11 
(MT) 
Absolute 
change 
(MT) 
(D-C) 
 Change per 
farm 
(kg per farm) 
(E*1,000/A) 
 (A)  (B)  (C)  (D)  (E)  (F) 
0-0.99 ha   616,867  41.9%  212,335  309,324  96,989  157.2 
1-1.99 ha   489,937   33.3%  381,293  707,438  326,145  665.7 
2-4.99 ha  315,459   21.4%  490,102  1,130,527  640,425  2,030.1 
5-9.99 ha   42,332  2.9%  196,848  494,719  297,871  7,036.6 
10-20 ha  6,626   0.5%  103,156  144,888  41,732  6,298.4 
Total 1,471,221  100%  1,383,735  2,786,896  1,403,161  953.7 
Sources: MACO/CSO Crop Forecast Surveys, 2005/06-2007/08, 2010/11. 
 
 
Column E shows the change in maize production 
over this period for each farm size category. 
Farmers cultivating less than one hectare 
contributed an additional 96,989 tonnes to 
national maize production in 2010/11 compared 
to their average maize production during the 3-
year period 2005/06-2007/08. By dividing the 
additional maize production in column E by the 
number of farms in each category as shown in 
Column A, we derive the additional maize 
production per farm for each of the farm size 
categories, as shown in Column F. When 
expressed on a per farm basis, it is apparent that 
farmers cultivating less than one hectare 
produced 157.2 additional kilograms of maize 
per farm in 2011. Farmers cultivating 1–2 
hectares contributed 326,145 additional tonnes of 
maize in 2010/11, which amounts to 666 
kilograms of additional maize per farm. Farmers 
cultivating 2–5 hectares contributed an additional 
640,425 tonnes to national maize production in 
2010/11, or 2.03 additional tonnes per 
household. The 2.9% of the farmers cultivating 
5–10 hectares contributed an additional 297,871 
tonnes to national maize production in 2010/11, 
which amounted to 7.04 tonnes of additional 3 
 
maize production per farm. And lastly, the 0.5% 
of farmers cultivating 10–20 hectares increased 
their maize production in 2010/11 by 6.3 tonnes 
per household in compared to the earlier baseline 
period.  
 
The data in Table 1 show that very little of the 
increase in national maize production in 2010/11 
came from the bottom category of farmers (less 
than one hectare cultivated) even though they 
account for over 40% of the smallholder farms in 
Zambia and are among the poorest of the rural 
poor.  Given that their maize output increased by 
an average of just three 50-kg bags per 
household between 2005/06-2007/08 and 
2010/11, the national maize bumper harvest is 
unlikely to have resulted in significant reductions 
in hunger and poverty among this group of 
farmers. The main increase in national maize 
production (column E) came from farmers in the 
1–2, 2–5 and 5–10 hectare cultivated area 
categories. When expressed in per farm terms, 
however, the major increases in maize 
production were enjoyed by farmers cultivating 
over 5 hectares—farm households which 
constitute only 3.4% of all the smallholder farms 
in Zambia. Table 1 clearly shows that the 
increase in maize production per farm is strongly 
related to farm size.  However, the relatively 
small increases in average maize production 
among the smallest farms is likely to have 
improved their food security status substantially 
as a result of their harvesting even a few more 
50-kg bags of maize in 2010/11 than in the 
earlier period. 
 
Table 2 uses the same Crop Forecast Survey data 
to examine the amount of subsidised FISP 
fertiliser received during the 2010/11 crop 
season by farmers within the same five 
categories. The number and percentage of farms 
in each category in 2010/11 are shown in 
columns A and B, respectively. The percentage 
of farms receiving FISP fertiliser in each 
category is presented in column C. Slightly over 
14% of the farmers cultivating less than one 
hectare received FISP fertiliser in the 2010/11 
crop season. The average quantity of fertilizer 
they received was 168 kg. Therefore, across all 
596,334 households in the category, the average 
household received 24.1 kg of FISP fertiliser 
(column D). By contrast, over 50% of farmers in 
the 10–20 hectare cultivated category received 
FISP fertiliser in 2010/11, receiving 657 kg per 
farm. Therefore, the average amount of FISP 
fertiliser received by farmers in the 10–20 
hectare category was 346 kg, about 14 times 
more per farm than those in the less than one 
hectare category. 
 
  
 
Table 2.  FISP Fertiliser Received (2010/11 Crop Season) and Expected Maize Sales, 2011, by Farm 
Size Category 
Total area 
cultivated 
(maize + all 
other crops) 
Number of 
farms %  of  farms 
(B) 
% of farmers 
receiving FISP 
fertilizer 
kg of FISP 
fertilizer 
received per 
farm household 
% of farmers 
expecting to 
sell maize 
Expected 
maize sales 
(kg/farm 
household) 
 (A)  (C)  (D)  (E)  (F) 
0-0.99 ha   596,334  39.6%  14.3%  24.1  22.2  135 
1-1.99 ha   499,026  33.1%  30.6%  69.3  47.7  609 
2-4.99 ha  354,116  23.5%  45.1%  139.7  64.0  1,729 
5-9.99 ha   49,410  3.3%  58.5%  309.7  82.1  6,613 
10-20 ha  6,999  0.5%  52.6%  345.6  86.8  15,144 
Total 1,505,885  100%  28.6%  77.1  42.7  950 
Source: MACO/CSO Crop Forecast Survey, 2010/11. 4 
 
Column E shows the percentage of households 
selling maize. This ranges from 22.2% among 
the smallest farm size category to 86.8% among 
the largest. In terms of quantities of maize 
expected to be sold, column F shows that, on 
average, about 135 kg of maize will be sold for 
every farm in the less-than-one hectare category, 
compared to 1.7 tonnes per household in the 2–5 
hectare category, and over 15.1 tonnes per 
household in the 10–20 hectare category. 
Clearly, the benefits of the FRA maize support 
prices are disproportionately enjoyed by the 
relatively large farmers over 5 hectares, even 
though they constitute only 3.8% of the 
smallholder farm population.  
 
Who Benefited? The past two years are a 
tribute to Zambian farmers: they have responded 
admirably to government efforts to promote 
maize production. Being the most important 
staple food in Zambia, maize surpluses 
contribute to food security and benefit the 
nation. But the smallest farmers in Zambia—
those cultivating less than 2 hectares who 
account for over 70% of all the smallholder 
farms in the country —participated only 
marginally in the maize production expansion of 
2010/11. These farmers received relatively little 
FISP fertiliser and sold very little maize, hence 
they were unable to benefit from the FRA 
producer price of 65,000 kwacha per bag. The 
farmers benefiting the most from the 
government’s expenditures on supporting maize 
prices were clearly those selling the most maize.  
 
This disaggregated picture of Zambia’s maize 
production expansion may reveal why rural 
poverty rates remain so high despite the record 
maize harvests in the past two years. The 
benefits of the two main poverty reduction 
programmes have been enjoyed 
disproportionately by the larger smallholder 
farmers who received more subsidised fertiliser 
per farm and sold substantially more maize than 
the 73% of farmers cultivating less than 2 
hectares. In fact, about 30% of the relatively 
poor smallholder households actually had to 
purchase more maize and maize meal than they 
produced to meet their families’ food needs and 
hence were adversely affected by a support price 
policy that raised maize prices in the 
countryside.  
 
What to do? Future efforts to reduce rural 
poverty could focus on targeting subsidised 
FISP fertiliser to the smallest farmers. This 
would provide them with greater opportunities 
to produce a surplus and benefit from FRA 
support prices. Targeting subsidised fertiliser in 
this way would have a greater likelihood of 
reducing rural poverty.  
 
Of course, there are other government 
programmes that have attempted to target inputs 
to poor farmers. However, their budgets have 
been small compared to the FISP, and the 
number of poor households in the less-than-two 
hectare category needing support is so large that 
some reallocation of poverty reduction funds 
from targeting better-off farmers to targeting 
poor farmers will be necessary to make serious 
progress in combating rural poverty.  
 
Evidence from the Crop Forecast Survey shows 
that the smallest farms use fertiliser slightly less 
efficiently than the larger smallholder farmers.   
In 2011, farmers cultivating less than two 
hectares obtained about 9% less maize per 
kilogram of fertiliser applied than farmers 
cultivating 5–20 hectares. Hence the targeting of 
subsidised fertiliser to poorer farmers would be 
expected to have a small impact on the size of 
Zambia’s national maize production, which may 
not be such a bad thing in a year in which the 
country is struggling to find export markets even 
at a major financial loss to the Treasury.  
 
Although the timing of the national maize 
production expansion coincides with the 
ramping up of FISP and FRA activities, 
empirical evidence indicates that unusually 
favorable weather, not FISP/FRA activities, was 
the main driver of higher maize output levels 
during the last two crop seasons. Overall, 
favorable weather was responsible for 42% of 
the growth in total production from the 2005/06-5 
 
2007/08 baseline period to 2010/11 (Mason et 
al. 2011). In the era of climate change, there is 
increased risk of unfavorable weather. The 
dominant role played by weather in determining 
Zambia’s maize production levels underscores 
the country’s high level of vulnerability to 
shifting weather patterns.   
 
A broader conclusion for the new PF 
government is that the FRA and FISP are very 
blunt tools for reducing rural poverty. Clearly a 
more holistic strategy is needed, one that 
involves raising on-farm productivity so that 
Zambian smallholders can profitably produce 
maize and other crops without government 
output price supports and input subsidies, 
promoting crop diversification, educating 
farmers in improved agronomic management 
and marketing practices, improved seed 
generation systems, livestock promotion 
programmes, and improved health and education 
programmes. A more holistic approach can be 
designed to raise the productivity of Zambian 
farms cultivating less than two hectares so that 
rural poverty can be more effectively tackled at 
its source.  
 
Acknowledgements 
   
The authors thank participants at the Ministry of 
Agriculture and Livestock-Food Security 
Research Project Retreat on 4-5 September, 
2011, for comments and suggestions that 
initiated this policy synthesis.  This brief is 
extracted from Mason, N. M., W. J. Burke, A. 
Shipekesa, and T. S. Jayne. 2011. The 2011 
Surplus in Smallholder Maize Production in 
Zambia: Drivers, Beneficiaries, and 
Implications for Agricultural and Poverty 
Reduction Policies. Food Security Research 
Project Working Paper No. 56. Lusaka: FSRP. 
The Food Security Research Project is a 
collaborative program of research, outreach, and 
local capacity building, between the Agricultural 
Consultative Forum, the Ministry of Agriculture 
and Cooperatives, and Michigan State 
University’s Department of Agricultural 
Economics. Comments and questions should be 
directed to the Food Security Research Project 
Director, 26A Middle way Road, Kabulonga, 
Lusaka: Tel +260 (21)1 234539; fax +260 (21)1 
234559; email: kabaghec@msu.edu 
 
About the authors: Jayne is professor,  Mason 
and Chapoto are assistant professors, 
International Development, and Burke is 
research specialist, all in the Department of 
Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, 
Michigan State University, and currently on 
long-term assignment with the Food Security 
Research Project (FSRP) in Lusaka, Zambia 
where Kabaghe is director and Shipekesa is 
research associate. 
 
REFERENCES   
Central Statistical Office. 2010. Poverty Trends 
Report, 1996-2006. Lusaka: CSO.  
Mason, N. M.,  W. J. Burke, A. Shipekesa, and 
T. S. Jayne. 2011. The 2011 Surplus in 
Smallholder Maize Production in Zambia: 
Drivers, Beneficiaries, and Implications for 
Agricultural and Poverty Reduction Policies. 
Food Security Research Project Working Paper 
No. 56. Lusaka: FSRP. 

Mountains of Maize, Persistent Poverty

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