(Bloomberg) -- The US has committed more than $80 million in funding under a new program to help grow agricultural output in three southern African nations it sees as having the potential to supply food to the broader region.
The US Agency for International Development’s and the State Department’s investment in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania brings its total commitments to the region under its Feed the Future program to $577 million, it said in statement Thursday. The agency chose those countries for their abundant arable land with small-holder growers with potential to boost yields with some help, according to Samantha Power, who heads the agency.
“We’re looking at countries where political will has been expressed and in some cases followed by very meaningful shifts in resources,” Power said in a phone interview ahead of the announcement. “What we are doing is trying to align and expand investments in accordance with plans that we think are credible to that objective of regional breadbaskets.”
African farmers have had a torrid time in recent years. First, the pandemic disrupted supply lines and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent fertilizer prices soaring. This year’s El Niño weather pattern brought an historic drought to Zambia and Malawi, while Tanzania endured severe flooding. In Zambia, growers reaped half the staple corn crop they did in 2023 and prices have soared.
The new USAID program, called the Feed the Future Accelerator, includes initiatives such as providing smart-phone technology to farmers so they have get access to information on weather patterns and soil health, and apply fertilizers more efficiently, Power said.
It also involves boosting private investment alongside US government funding.
At the announcement, companies including Bayer AG unveiled investments, such as a new $35 million seed-production facility in Zambia. A unit of Olam International Ltd. said it will invest $80 million over four years to boost its Zambia and Tanzania coffee supply chains.
Investments the US is making in the Lobito corridor — a railroad connecting central Africa to an Atlantic port in Angola — will also help farmers in the region get their products to market more efficiently, Power said. Washington is backing plans to build a new rail link into Zambia, connecting it to the Lobito line.
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