Food Security Research Project – Zambia: Third Quarter Report, 2009

The project aims to contribute to effective policy dialogue, capacity building, and ultimately an improved agricultural policy environment in Zambia. The project's objectives are to strengthen the capacity of MACO, ACF, and other local institutions and government agencies responsible for food security in Zambia to carry out applied research and policy analysis on food security. The project also aims to strengthen the capacity of MACO, the Ministry of Finance and National Development, and the Ministry of Commerce, Trade, and Industry to help coordinate research on national food security issues. Additionally, the project aims to strengthen the Central Statistical Office (CSO) to carry out surveys, manage and process data, and perform basic analyses useful to policy makers. The project's implementation approach is guided by the FSRP's semi-annual Advisory Board consultations. The Advisory Board includes MACO, ACF, INESOR/UNZA, CSO, USAID, and FSRP. The project's substantive research and outreach activities are carried out by field office research fellows and research specialists who collaborate intensively with MSU campus-based staff on analysis and outreach efforts. In the third quarter of 2009, the project made significant progress in several areas. The project continued work on the CAADP and related Zambia agriculture budget work. A high policy-level dialogue meeting was organized with ministers at Protea Lodge, Chisamba, where issues such as the stalled CAADP process, fertilizer support program, maize marketing, and trade policy in Zambia were discussed. The meeting resulted in the reactivation of the CAADP process, and a detailed implementation structure and plan were proposed for the proposed fertilizer support program reforms. The project also continued data collection exercises for work on measuring the impact of rural roads investment on smallholder livelihood in Zambia. A new subheading to the ACF/FSRP website was completed to contain downloadable documents on the output and background documents for the returns to research on sweet potato and cassava. In addition, the project made progress on several research studies, including a policy synthesis on "Access to Land and Poverty Reduction in Rural Zambia: Connecting the Policy Issues." The project also continued work on a linear programming model of conservation farming (CF) to measure the prospective gains to smallholder income by adopting CF and shifting peak season land preparation labor to the dry season. The project expects to finalize this report during the fourth quarter of 2009. The project also started working on two new studies to examine the longer-run impacts of HIV/AIDS on smallholder agriculture and rural livelihoods. These studies will look at whether the relationship between poverty and mortality has been changing in Zambia and the longer-run impacts, adjustments, and potential recovery by rural farm households to prime-age morbidity and mortality in Zambia.