When I ask about challenges facing the people of Makwatata in their day to day lives, almost every adult has a common response – providing enough food to feed their family throughout the year.

The vast majority of households in Makwatata rely on agriculture as their primary source of livelihood, and food security is by far the biggest problem compromising their quality of life. Most families here farm less than one hectare.

Every family without exception grows maize, and most grow a combination of groundnuts, cotton, and sunflowers, both for their own consumption and to sell. Farmers involved in agricultural groups know the value of diversifying, and have intercropped their fields with pumpkins and beans. Fifteen families are lucky enough to have land along a stream that never runs dry, where their gardens yield tomatoes, onions, cabbages, rape and mustard.

“We used to just grow maize and cotton,” says Agnes Lungu, a 39-year-old woman who cares for six children, one grandchild, and one orphaned 14-year-old girl, along with her husband. “We saw that other farmers were raising more money by growing different crops as well, so now we also grow groundnuts, beans and sunflowers.”

“We use the money from our produce to pay for the children to go to school, and for things like buying fertilizer. There is little left over to buy more food, so we mostly eat what we grow, and there is often not enough for the whole family. I would like to participate in a livestock programme in the future so we could have some meat, and the children could have a more varied diet. They would be healthier then.”

The average household in Makwatata has six children, and where household resources are limited, priority for food resides first with the father and then the mother, often leaving little for the children to eat. Statistics show that a shocking 48 per cent of rural children in Zambia are stunted because of malnutrition, and I have been truly surprised to learn the real age of some of the children here in Makwatata who look much younger than their years.

There are many households in the village who grow crops for their own consumption alone, and these farmers are most at risk of food insecurity. Elderly people, particularly widows living alone or with grandchildren, appear to struggle the most. Some have help from their children, but others have none, and are forced to rely on their own feeble strength to produce as little as one or two bags of maize in the whole year. The village’s most vulnerable people are often dependent on the charity of their already overstretched neighbours.

According to the Zambian Central Statistical Office, an estimated 76 per cent of all food crop farmers are food insecure, the majority of whom are women. Seasonal variations in food supply also have a huge impact on poor smallholder farmers, and from September to February, there is a critical shortage of food.

To make matters worse, when the food supply is at its lowest, labour demand is at its highest as the rains begin and weeding and planting needs to be carried out in the fields. The disease burden is also high at this time of year, as hot and wet weather provide ideal conditions for the spread of infection.

There is often not enough for the whole family

As the average rural household consumes 65 per cent of its income or production on food, little is left to meet other needs such as healthcare or education. Crises such as food price hikes can therefore devastate these smallholder farmers. They are also vulnerable to environmental and climatic disasters such as flooding, drought or disease, all of which can lead to crop failure.

Many people in Makwatata are now members of groups and co-operatives, which provide access for marginalised farmers, especially women, to government subsidies, knowledge and technology, assets, markets and better business opportunities. These groups have been set up in rural areas all around Zambia in an attempt to improve livelihoods and increase food security. Many are supported by local and international NGOs, and others have been set up by members of the community.

In the next couple of days I will be meeting group members to find out how they are organised, and whether the schemes are helping to improve food security for these families.