Last week, Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global food security initiative, launched a new regional vision to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to a more food secure, prosperous African Continent.
The United States has committed $577 million through Feed the Future to promote food security, reduce hunger and chronic malnutrition, and accelerate future agriculture-led economic growth in a key part of Sub-Saharan Africa. This includes over $80 million of new FY 2024 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and State Department funds and supplemental resources to three countries in the region — Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia. These funds will support Feed the Future programming to drive agriculture-led growth, build more resilient food systems in the region, and help these countries rapidly respond to impacts of recent droughts and the lingering macroeconomic shocks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Alongside these investments, the United States is joined by over $150 million in aligned investments from the private sector.
This funding will support the Feed the Future Accelerator, the U.S. government’s effort to deepen food security partnerships with Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia, where strategic investments in agricultural productivity have the potential to accelerate economic growth on a regional scale, help neighboring countries stabilize their food security, and enhance market-linkages and regional food trade. U.S. investments will harness the region’s combination of fertile land, diverse farming systems, and reform-minded governments to support a regional breadbasket.
The Feed the Future Accelerator allows the United States to meet key challenges of the moment while continuing to deliver on the objectives of the U.S. Global Food Security Strategy and its Strategic Partnership with the African Union and Africa countries.
The compounding impacts of the global pandemic, the growing pressures of the deepening climate crisis, and protracted conflicts — including Russia’s war in Ukraine — pushed weak supply chains to the brink and revealed stark weaknesses in our global food system. Globally, the macroeconomic impacts of these shocks have diminished, but they continue to have a lingering effect in Sub-Saharan Africa, where domestic prices remain high and one-in-five people are still chronically hungry. Today, extreme weather brought on by El Niño is now driving an acute food shortage as droughts and flooding decimate crops across large swathes of Southern and Eastern Africa. The current crisis is dire, but it is far from unique.
Amid these challenges, the urgency of building a more resilient global food system is clear. To achieve this, we need to strategically concentrate our investments in agricultural bright spots amidst the many hunger hotspots around the world. Our investments need to catalyze agriculture-led economic-growth that can spill over borders — creating new breadbaskets and supporting region-wide food security gains.
These commitments to the Feed the Future Accelerator will do just that — leveraging over a decade of Feed the Future’s leadership in food security to drive trade-centric, regional economic growth in Southern and Eastern Africa. Our approach will aim to catalyze our private sector partners, other donors, host country governments and the research community toward a common goal of sustainably increasing the production, sale and consumption of profitable, safe and nutritious foods across borders to increase incomes and drive inclusive GDP growth.
Specifically, with a new commitment of over $80 million, the United States will:
- Respond to immediate food insecurity exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ongoing extreme weather: Through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States will provide $25 million to mitigate ongoing food insecurity and build food system resilience in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia. These funds will provide critical support to smallholder farmers to help them increase yields, mitigate impacts of extreme weather with improved crop varieties, and improve water use efficiency and access — reducing risks to future harvests in the Zambezi River Basin shared by all three countries.
- Build sustainable, resilient food systems: USAID is investing $51.2 million in programming to drive economic growth and strengthen food systems in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia. USAID sees the greatest potential for transformational impact in these countries through increased funding to improve agricultural productivity, drive a policy agenda with strong host country partners, reduce poverty, improve nutrition outcomes and build resilience at the household level. This would catalyze a whole-of-government approach to leverage the full capabilities of the interagency, provide sorely needed financing to agri-SMEs, and crowd in private sector investment to realize long term progress beyond our programs. Efforts will focus on three significant drivers of progress:
- Sustainable Agricultural Productivity: In addition to increasing food supplies, investments in the agriculture sector are up to four times more effective than investments in any other sector to spur economic growth and reduce poverty in low income countries.
- Climate-Smart Innovations: 3-3.6 billion people live in areas vulnerable to climate change, and climate change is already impacting crop yields. At the same time, food systems contribute nearly a third of greenhouse gas emissions. Helping farmers adapt to climate change and minimizing environmental impacts is the only way to create sustainable food systems.
- Expanded Market Access and Efficiency: Well-functioning and resilient market systems and trade networks support the movement of food and agricultural products from areas of food surplus to food deficit, stabilizing food supply and prices and improving food insecurity. Strengthened trade has the potential to improve diet diversity by increasing the availability of different types of nutritious foods. Expanding access to markets and trade networks is especially vital for small-scale producers and MSMEs, including those owned and operated by women, youth, and other marginalized groups.
- Advance improved seeds and soils: The State Department, through the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS), will provide $4 million to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to scale-up adoption of climate adapted crops and soil health technologies for enhanced food and nutrition security and agriculture commercialization.
Ongoing U.S. government investments to support food security in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.
- Improving farmers access to markets by improving rural roads: In May 2024, the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) launched a $350 million compact with Malawi which will reduce the country’s transport costs and connect farmers to markets by improving more than 300 kilometers of rural roads — ultimately benefiting over 5 million Malawians.
- Developing new storage and production capacity along the Lobito Corridor: In February 2024, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) committed a $10 million loan to Seba Foods Zambia Ltd. — This is the first U.S. food and agriculture investment along the Lobito Corridor. The DFC loan will support the expansion of Seba Foods Zambia Ltd.’s food production and storage capacity for maize-based, soy-based, and other nutritious and affordable consumer food products, strengthening Zambia’s food value chain.
- Supporting child nutrition in Tanzania: Since 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has committed over $28 million to support school feeding programs in Tanzania through the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program.
- Supporting market-led efforts to increase sustainable production in Malawi. The USDA has also committed over $23 million in Malawi to support a market-led effort to help Malawian farmers boost their yields using resource-efficient, sustainable farming methods. In addition, the USDA has also provided funding to support stronger seed and fertilizer policies and regulatory frameworks in Malawi, combat crop diseases in Tanzania and across East Africa, conduct oilseed value chain assessments and build better food safety practices in Zambia.
- Supporting food safety measures to enhance regional food trade. USAID is partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to make a joint $3 million commitment to address capacity building needs on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) policy and regulatory issues in Southern and Eastern Africa.
- Scaling producers’ access to agricultural innovations through the Accelerating Innovation Delivery Initiative (AID-I). Through a joint USAID-State Department initiative, AID-I is a $50 million, two year effort providing critical support to smallholders in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia by improving access to the latest agricultural innovations in demand-led and market-based approaches to increase food production amid climate change and the rising cost of food, fuel, and fertilizer.
Aligned Investments from the Private Sector
- Bayer announced a $35 million investment to build a new seed production facility in Zambia, which is expected to open in March 2025. The hybrid seeds Bayer will produce will be sold around the region, contributing to a more harmonious, regional seed market that benefits smallholder farmers in neighboring countries.
- ofi, one of the largest coffee producers and exporters in Tanzania and Zambia, will invest $80 million ($20 million annually over the next four years) in Zambia and Tanzania coffee supply value chains. These investments aim to boost local economies, generate additional income for farming communities, and reduce environmental impact through regenerative practices and improved waste management. In Zambia, ofi will bolster coffee production infrastructure and create economic opportunities in the Northern Province. In Tanzania, investments will focus on scaling new value-added export products like cascara, specialty coffee, and improving waste management. These coffee exports inject over $10 million annually into the local economies of two of the most remote and underdeveloped regions in these countries.
- Pyxus in September 2023 announced $30 million to support groundnut production in Malawi.Over the next five years, this investment will support farmer financing for high-quality seed, expand markets for groundnut farmers, boost value addition for groundnut products, and spur sustainable production of high-value varieties that are in demand in international markets.
- Acumen will invest $3.25 million through their Hardest-to-Reach (H2R) Initiative, supported by USAID Power Africa. This investment aims to enhance clean energy access for over 246,000 people in Malawi and Zambia. Acumen’s agriculture initiatives, Trellis and ARAF II, will also invest $3.5 million in up to four agribusinesses in Tanzania to bolster climate resilience for smallholder farmers, further advancing energy access and climate adaptation in these regions.
- Minjingu Mines and Fertiliser, the largest fertilizer manufacturer in Tanzania, partnered with USAID to make a $5 million combined commitment to addressing fertilizer access challenges in the country. This commitment is expected to increase the company’s fertilizer production by 50 percent — adding $20 million in additional domestic fertilizer sales over two years and additional exports worth $8 million.
- Mount Meru Millers, the largest purchaser and processor of locally produced oilseeds in Tanzania, and USAID made a combined $3.1 million commitment to establish an out-grower scheme. The investment will strengthen farmers’ productivity and access to inputs, markets, and extension services — ultimately making quality fortified sunflower oil more available in Tanzanian markets.
