Economic Growth Success Stories

A honey farmer works with her beehives
Smallholder Export Organic Honey Production and Sale Increases

In early FY 2003, the USAID supported Zambia Agribusiness Technical Assistance Center (ZATAC) began providing assistance to a “Smallholder Export Organic Honey Project” in Mwinilunga district in Zambia’s poorest province, the North Western Province. ZATAC’s approach of providing marketing, technical and financial linkages between producers and agribusinesses paid off very quickly in the sub-sector.

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Kazungula Milk Collection Center: A Model for Replication

After the successful establishment of the Kazungula Milk Collection Center in FY 2002, the USAID supported ZATAC Ltd, working together with other partners in a development alliance, has facilitated the replication of the Kazungula milk collection center model to nine (9) other strategic locations to create milk markets for smallholder producers thereby raising the number of USAID supported rural dairy centers in Zambia to 10.

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Linking Producers to Markets

In isolated North-Western Province of Zambia, smallholders in the Miombo forests in the headwaters of the Zambezi River have traditionally followed the honey-guide bird to find seasonal sweets, but not much income.

Thanks to the USAID-supported Zambia Agribusiness Technical Assistance Center (ZATAC) project, 3000 smallholders have now been trained in beekeeping, boosting household incomes by more than 60 percent. They now produce, harvest, and properly handle certified organic honey for export to the European Union, and soon to the Middle East and the USA.

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Mrs. Siakulipa admiring her cows
Pathway to Successful Livelihoods

Mrs. Queen Siakulipa is a dairy farmer in in Zambia’s Southern Province. She and her husband received their first dairy cow as part of the USAID-funded Consortium for Agriculture and nutrition, AIDS, Resiliency and Marketing or CFAARM project. Before this, the Siakulipa’s main source of livelihood was vegetable gardening, which earned them an average of $10 a month. Vegetable gardening is dependent on the weather and susceptible to pest infestations which requires costly chemicals to prevent.

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