In July, a group of farmers gathered in a small mission style chapel about two hours outside Mongu, the capital of Western Province in Zambia. The farmers spoke knowingly about the relation between burning grass and charcoal, carbon monoxide and climate change. They talked about the importance of biodiversity and caring for the soil. In particular, they worried about drought and access to water.

They were there to meet with members of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, a Zambian civil society organization that has trained farmers on adapting their agricultural practices to climate change. (Editors’ note: The author is an associate of the center.)

There used to be a stream that ran through the plain, one farmer said. Now it dries up in June and only comes through sometimes. The rains hardly come at all, the other farmers agreed.

In rural Zambia, subsistence farmers face complex questions with no easy answers and very little time. Drought fueled by climate change threatens smallholder farmers and the communities that depend on them for food. Government and private efforts to modernize agriculture raise additional questions about the rights of farmers in an age of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers.

Zambian farmers are used to dealing with dry spells, according to Claus Recktenwald, S.J., an agriculturalist who runs the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre outside Lusaka.

But dry spells are lasting longer and becoming more severe because of climate change. “It is a fact,” he said, “that the small scale farmers are normally the most vulnerable in terms of climate change and extreme weather because they do not have a backup system.”

When rains stop suddenly, fragile, germinating plants die and farmers must re-sow their fields. Acquiring new seeds represents a serious financial challenge.

“If then also the second sowing fails,” Father Recktenwald said, “then, basically, farmers have missed the chance to get crops growing in this season.”

The vulnerability of subsistence farmers became especially apparent in February 2024, when Zambia’s president, Hakainde Hichilema, declared a national emergency because of the worst drought in decades. Rains did come finally to the region at the end of 2024, but not before significant damage had been done.

A report from the United Nations published in March took stock of the drought’s impact. Data from December showed that over nine million Zambians were affected and estimated that 5.8 million (about 27 percent of the population) would experience “crisis-level hunger” between October 2024 and March 2025.

Imanga Wamunyima, a member of Parliament for Nalolo District in Western Province, described the effect in his community. Because of the drought, he said, “we had some areas where there was completely zero [agricultural] production.” In a good year, local farmers grow corn and rice. What they do not eat themselves is sold at local markets for other commodities and food they cannot grow themselves and to buy seed and supplies for the next season.

The effect of crop failures compound and ripple across the country. Low supply and high demand, both driven by the drought, pushed the cost of food higher even as Zambia’s poor subsistence farmers struggled to salvage drought devastated harvests. An emergency assessment completed in March 2024 by the United Nations and the Zambian government found that 77 percent of households interviewed reported that adults were eating less food to ensure there was enough for children.

Despite a good harvest this spring, a report in August from the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection shows that cost of living remains high throughout Zambia, driven up by food costs.

Challenges of Climate Change

Stretching from the eastern border of Angola to Namibia in the south, the vast Western Province is one of the most rural regions of Zambia. It is also one of the poorest.

According to a 2022 report from the Zambian Statistical Agency, 79 percent of the population in Western Province live below the poverty line and 62 percent live in extreme poverty, unable to meet basic nutritional needs. According to a report published in June by the Zambian Statistical Agency, about 77 percent of the people in Western Province are farmers.

Though farmers throughout Zambia are affected by climate change, farmers in Western Province are especially vulnerable. According to Father Recktenwald, the situation is worsening.

“The weather is becoming more and more like in [nearby] Namibia, where the mean annual rainfall is dropping [and] temperatures are rising, so with climate change these larger weather patterns are changing,” he said.

His concerns are echoed by Mr. Wamunyima. Despite considerable improvements in rainfall this year, Western Province is not food secure. Conditions in the future are likely to be difficult. “I don’t see any consistent pattern of rainfall every year,” he said. “I think it’s going to be on and off because of climate change.”

And government attempts to aid farmers in Western Province may be contributing to the region’s vulnerability. The national Farmer Input Support Programme provides synthetic fertilizers and hybrid seeds to poor farmers to increase their productivity.

This strategy for increasing production, however, has significant drawbacks in Western Province, where the soil is soft and sandy. Father Recktenwald reports that the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers like those provided through F.I.S.P. is increasing desertification in the province.

Healthy soil includes decomposed organic matter, which gives the soil structure and helps it retain water. Synthetic chemical fertilizers, along with pesticides and excessive tilling, reduce organic matter and break down the soil’s structure, according to Father Recktenwald. This changes “the chemical and physical properties of the soil,” he said, which decreases its capacity to hold water and “takes away the chance that the crops can actually survive these more dry situations.”

Recognizing the fragility of their local soil, farmers in Western Province prefer to use non-chemical methods of fertilization that are easier on the soil, according to Mr. Wamunyima.

“The bigger part of the community does not support chemical fertilizer because of its [destructive effect] on the sandy soil,” he said. However, the availability of organic fertilizer is limited, so many farmers are forced to also use the chemical fertilizers provided by F.I.S.P.

Hybrid harm

Multinational corporations are eager to capitalize on the business opportunity afforded by Zambia’s under-resourced agricultural market. In March of this year, the German multinational company Bayer announced it had built a 32 million Euro seed facility in Zambia which, according to its press release, tripled Bayer’s capacity to produce hybrid seeds in Zambia. Bayer hopes to reach 10 million smallholder farmers by 2030.

The appeal of hybrid seeds is straightforward. Hybrid seeds are bred to have specific traits like high yields or drought resistance. This makes them especially attractive to governments, like Zambia’s, concerned about food security and drought.

Compared to local seeds, hybrid seeds are very expensive. However, the promised increased yields can still make them attractive to many poor farmers, especially if the government subsidizes the seeds.

At the opening of the new facility, Bayer’s chief executive Bill Andersen was joined by Mr. Hichilema. In the press release, Mr. Andersen underscored the connection between hybrid seeds and food security. “Ending hunger is central to our mission at Bayer. With our new seed facility in Zambia, we want to make a meaningful contribution to that crucial goal.”

Both Father Recktenwald and Mr. Wamunyima are concerned, however, that the massive inflow of hybrid seeds envisaged by Bayer and other large foreign agricultural companies will have a negative effect on subsistence farmers by decreasing genetic diversity and increasing dependence on foreign seed companies.

With respect to climate resilience, Father Recktenwald argues that there are limits to what can be done in a lab. Non-hybrid indigenous seeds retain significant genetic diversity and are adapted over time to local conditions, like the sandy soils of Western Province. This genetic diversity and local adaptation are necessary for plants to develop in response to climate change.

Perhaps most significantly for farmers, the superior performance of hybrid seeds lasts for only one generation. The desired traits, like high yields and drought resistance, diminish rapidly. Unlike traditional local seeds, which are selected and replanted each season by farmers, hybrid seeds must be bred and bought for each planting season. According to Father Recktenwald, this makes it impossible for farmers to save and reseed their crops.

For seed companies, this is good news. If Zambia’s path to food security in response to climate change runs primarily through hybrid seeds, rather than local varieties, it ensures seeds will be bought by governments and on the market year after year.

Seed markets in developed countries are saturated, Father Recktenwald said, but large margins are still possible in Africa. “Therefore the big seed companies and also other companies see Africa as a potential market for the future.”

Legislation proposed in Zambia and discussed in parliament would further tip the balance in favor of seed companies, Father Recktenwald said, by restricting how seeds are traded and developed. According to Mr. Wamunyima, Zambia’s minister of agriculture assured Parliament that new legislation would not affect traditional seeds and indigenous farming practices. However, he added, “this assurance remains unverifiable with statistics and empirical evidence.”

Diverging Models of Development

At stake are fundamental questions about the sort of development Zambia wants to pursue. The answers to these questions will have significant consequences for the farmers in Western Province.

For Mr. Wamunyima, the phasing out of the indigenous seeds “would literally destroy the cultural heritage of farming in the country and would put the farming practices and agriculture sector at high risk.” He questions whether seed companies will actually benefit Zambian markets, noting that they tend to distribute seeds in Zambia but maintain most of their operations outside the country.

Mr. Wamunyima argues that F.I.S.P. should be phased out. Instead, he proposes that an agricultural bank should provide financing to farmers who will be free to buy and use both local and hybrid seeds as they see fit.

For his part, Father Recktenwald wants to reframe the debate. It is his hope that decisions about the future of Zambian agriculture and its response to climate change would prioritize the common good, rather than focusing on maximizing profits for seed companies.

Father Recktenwald argues that Zambia needs to develop a legal system that balances the rights of seed companies and local farmers. Seed companies should be able to do their work and farmers should have the right to plant and develop seeds they think are suitable for them.

“As we are facing, as one human family, this climate change,” he said, “we should see how we can best work together to find ways to deal with it and to adapt our food production.”

According to Father Recktenwald, this means not thinking about hybrid seeds primarily as a “business model.” If our only consideration is short term profit margins, he said, “we are actually just increasing the amount of problems that we are passing on to those that are coming after us and we are just increasing the space between the rich and the poor.”

In a small village in Western Province about an hour past the chapel, more farmers and their families gathered beneath a mango tree. Here the problems are urgent and the space between the rich and the poor is apparent. The future remains uncertain, but they find ways to cope. Pointing wryly at the mango tree, one noted that come December, they can eat mangos.

This article appears in December 2025.

Luke Olsen, S.J., is a Jesuit scholastic studying economics and international development at Fordham University.