Agriculture expert Dr. Frank Kayula has questioned […]

Agriculture expert Dr. Frank Kayula has questioned how much of the K34 billion worth of loans to the Agriculture sector was directed to small-holder farmers? Owing to the fact that they are the largest contributors to Zambia’s agric out-puts.

This follows official government data seen by the Zambian Business Times-ZBT from the Bank of Zambia indicating that in the past 5 years the Agriculture sector had lent money from various commercial Banks worth K34.8 billion from the period of 2021 to 2025 making it one of the key sectors with a huge loan value out of 11 sectors.

According to the report, the highest allocation by year from 2021-2025 out of the total K34 billion, was seen in 2025 which had K9.8 billion.

Further the breakdown by ZBT indicates that in 2021, K50.2 billion was the total amount lent to the sector, K4.9 billion was for 2022, 2023 had K6.7 billion and finally 2024 had a total of K8.1 billion. With the government now targeting to reach 10,000 million metric tonnes of maize by 2031, 3 million metric tonnes of Soya Beans annually and 1 million metric tonnes of Wheat annually, how much money will be lent to the Agriculture sector be able to say a lot of money is going towards the small-holder farmers”, said Kayula.

He added that as things currently stand, only a little chunk from the K34.8 billion was lent to small-holder farmers. “As it stands very little of the K34.8 billion went to small-holder farmers, because much of it was directed to commercial entities and commercial farmers which should be the case”, Dr.Kayula.

However, Dr. Kayula mentioned that in terms of investment going forward irrigation and mechanization are key areas that need to be prioritized.

 “We need to invest in irrigation and mechanization, because these are two important aspects that need to be implemented by small-holder farmers to be able to increase production and productivity,” said Dr. Kayula.

He added that investment in knowledge sharing is another area of importance which should be backed by funding in research to help in high yield out-puts. in the next five years to help achieve the grow Zambia agenda?

 Agriculture expert Dr. Frank Kayula in an interview with Zambian Business Times-ZBT emphasized on the need for a baseline to be drawn clearly stating how much was lent to commercial entities and small-scale farmers who are the largest contributors.

“ The document should clearly indicate how much of the total is going to small holder farmers and how much was directed to other commercial agricultural entities, then we can “ We also need to invest in knowledge and knowledge transfer, which means research has to be funded and extension as well, so as to ensure that the knowledge is channeled out to farmers through adequate research making it easy for small-holder farmers to implement”, said Dr. Kayula.

He further indicates that addressing the four fundamental issues outlined will make it possible to move towards the desired 10,000 million metric tonnes of maize or surpass the target.

Article by Justine Phiri