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Zambia’s production of its staple crop, corn, is expected to drop by more than 50 percent in marketing year 2024/25, due to extended dry spells associated with the El Niño event. Almost a million hectares of corn have been destroyed by the drought that forced the Zambian President to declare a “National Disaster and Emergency”.

Zambia’s production of its staple crop, corn, is expected to grow by 23 percent to 3.3 million metric tons (MMT) in marketing year (MY) 2023/24, mainly due to an upsurge in planted area.

The Namibian Ministry of Agriculture appears to have granted an extension to consignments that were already prepared for departure to Namibia before the announcement of the Circular V15 of 2022 on December 7, 2022.

Despite lower production in marketing year (MY) 2022/23, Zambia’s production of its staple crop, corn, will be sufficient to meet domestic demand. Zambia’s corn crop is forecast to decline by 25 percent to 2.7 million metric tons (MMT) in MY 2022/23, after producing a record crop 3.6 MMT in MY 2021/22.

Zambia produced its largest corn crop on record in the 2021/22 MY. This bumper corn crop of 3.6 million tons follows on Zambia’s third largest corn crop of 3.4 million tons produced in the 2020/21 MY.

In the 2020/21 MY, Zambia produced its second highest corn crop on record. This bumper corn crop of 3.4 million tons is 69 percent higher than the previous season’s crop of 2.0 million tons.

On April 9, 2020, the United States reported an outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) to the International Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Namibia is the first African country to gain market access to export beef to the United States after 18 years of trade negotiations between the two countries.

The Zambian government estimates a 16 percent drop in the production of corn in the 2019/20 MY to 2.0 million tons, due to drought that impacted the southern parts of the country.

Two-way agricultural trade between the United States and Southern Africa has grown significantly in the past decade, reaching a record $1.5 billion in 2017.

Namibia consumes about 49,000 tons of beef, 40,000 tons of poultry meat and 6,000 tons of pork per annum.

This is Posts’ first report on the Zambia sugar industry.