Feed the Future Initiative

As part of a global commitment to combat food insecurity and achieve broader economic growth, prosperity, and stability, President Obama announced the U.S. government's Feed the Future Initiative in 2009. Feed the Future represents a $3.5 billion pledge to tackle global food security challenges.

Feed the Future supports country-owned plans for improving food security and harnesses the power of the private sector and research to transform agricultural development. Investments will improve agricultural productivity, expand markets and trade, and increase the economic resilience of vulnerable rural communities. Feed the Future seeks to unleash the proven potential of small-scale agricultural producers to deliver results on a large scale.

Zambia is one of twenty Feed the Future countries selected worldwide for focused investment, in recognition of both its enormous agricultural potential and its significant food security challenges. Over the next five years, the U.S. government will provide $100 million in funding for agriculture and nutrition programming in Zambia. USAID/Zambia will partner with key Zambian government institutions, development partners, and the private sector to implement Feed the Future programs. These programs support the Government of Zambia’s priorities for agriculture sector growth.

In Zambia, the Feed the Future strategy aims to diversify staple food production and consumption to improve food security and rural incomes while reducing under-nutrition in children. Feed the Future programs will work toward these aims through four integrated intervention areas: (1) transformation of food crop value chains; (2) policy reform; (3) household-level interventions to build economic resilience; and (4) activities to improve nutrition.

The Feed the Future partnership with Zambia will assist 200,000 smallholder farming households to rise above the poverty line. Feed the Future investments will assist efforts to decrease the percentage of malnourished children under five by one-third. Additionally, Feed the Future investments will enhance the production, marketing, and consumption of nutritious crops including orange-fleshed sweet potato and provitamin A-rich orange maize.

Feed the Future programs in Zambia will concentrate on the Lusaka – Eastern Province corridor due to the high prevalence of poverty and undernutrition, and the potential for growth..