Agriculture is vital to Zambia's economic development and is a mainstay for the livelihoods of a large proportion of the population. Agricultural production is mainly dependent on rain-fed hoe cultivation with maize as the principal staple food crop. About 18 percent of national maize production comes from Zambia's Southern province. In order to improve food security and minimize risks associated with heavy dependence on maize, the government of Zambia has been promoting crop diversification. This study analyzed the determinants of crop diversification as well as the factors influencing the extent of crop diversification by smallholder farmers in Southern province. The study used secondary data from the Central Statistical Office of Zambia. Results from a double-hurdle model analysis indicates that landholding size, fertilizer quantity, distance to market, and the type of tillage mechanism adopted have a strong influence on whether a farmer practices crop diversification. Our findings have important implications for policies that are designed to enhance crop diversification. In particular, our results suggest the need for government to consider undertaking policies that will enhance farmers' access to and control over land, that will provide farmers with improved access to agricultural implements like ploughs, and that will bring trading markets closer to farmers.

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This paper applied the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework (GIFF), a practical policy tool operationalizing key insights of New Structural Economics, to help policymakers in least developing countries (LDCs) to catching-up by developing feasible and sharply focused policies. In doing so, LDCs are able to identify and unlock their latent comparative advantages to achieve structural transformation. Also, a description of the economic development of Zambia, including agriculture, mining, manufacturing, tourism, import and export of products. Through the comparison with Vietnam, Indonesia, Morocco and Ghana, the paper points out the comparative advantages and development potential of Zambia, and how to transform these comparative advantages into competitive advantages. Based on the analysis of the constraints on the development of Zambia's agriculture, mining, tourism and other industries, the paper proposes some measures for the government to undertake so as to deal with these constraints, in order to promote the development of Zambia.

This study assesses the adaptation of smallholder farmers to climate extremes and its contributing factors in Zambia’s southern province. The study employed primary data collected from 270 smallholder farmers, and these constituted the sample size.  According to the study's findings, change crop variety was adopted by 43% of the farmers. Other strategies of adaptation that were employed include; agricultural insurance, change sow/harvest date, crop diversification and soil conservation.   The findings also showed that the various strategies of adaptation (agricultural insurance, change sow/harvest date, crop diversification and soil conservation), correlated positively with age, education, distance, farming experience, ownership of a radio, an ox, a plough, and extension source. The study makes the following recommendations; (a) enhancing the education and awareness level of farmers towards climate extreme, (b) improving farmers’ access to agricultural assets (plough, oxen etc), and (c) when developing and implementing adaptation strategies, farming experience should be taken into account.