With the global population set to double in the coming decades, Southern Africa’s availability of arable land gives the region potential to be a key centre of agricultural production and contributor to improved food security.
Southern Africa

Region Southern Africa
Solidaridad Southern Africa manages programmes in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 218 million people live in extreme poverty, with the majority of the region’s populations living in rural areas and dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods.
Developments
Southern Africa has experienced significant economic growth over recent years. However, benefits accruing from these investments in the region have mostly excluded the rural poor.
With the majority of Southern Africa’s population living in rural areas and dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, smallholder producers and their communities portray, contrary to economic growth trends, higher levels of inequality.
Recent trends show that the need for effective and sustainable solutions to these developments are gradually being recognized by power holders in the region.
Smallholder producers, and women and youth in particular, are increasingly prioritized in policy as the future of agricultural and economic development and there is also an increased consumer-led demand for more sustainable produce.
Opportunities have therefore arisen for smallholders to feed into local supply chains, but in order to do this, they require support and access to services to apply better practices to ensure their produce to meets international standards.
Challenges
Economic, climatic and physical factors, such as variable rainfall combined with unsustainable agricultural practices, constitute the most important immediate causes of the degradation of the soil and water resource base upon which future agricultural output in Southern Africa depends.
Unsustainable agriculture causes huge losses to the economies of some countries through declining agricultural production, a loss of food security, mass migrations, rapid urbanisation and an increased need for governments to import food.
Ineffective administration and a lack of resources in remote regions of Southern Africa mean that smallholder producers battle to access or are not able to invest in external inputs that improve livelihoods and help remedy unsustainable land use.
Solidaridad works to improve smallholder knowledge on sustainable practices and provide innovative technologies and solutions to change and reverse unsustainable land use that have compounded the devastating effects of climate change in the region.
Achievements
The cluster model for Better Cotton Initiative smallholders in Mozambique has seen an average yield increase of over 100% amongst cluster farmers compared to non-cluster farmers.
The Farmer Support Programme in Swaziland trained smallholder sugarcane producers in business skills and natural resource management, improving smallholders’ income and the number of areas under sustainable land use.
Solidaridad has supported local barley smallholders produce and supply Heineken with local, sustainable barley. Solidaridad has also established offices in Mozambique and Zambia as well as a presence in Malawi, further expanding its reach in the region.
Solidaridad’s partnership with Concern Universal in the Farmer Support Programme in Malawi improved grower organizations capacity as well as smallholder technical capacity resulting in an 85% adoption rate of sustainable farming practices.
Solidaridad Southern Africa will continue to use digital solutions adapted to the Southern African context and has gained the interest of some key players in the fruit and vegetables and sugarcane sectors.
Track record Southern Africa through the years
Southern Africa is affected by political and economic instability with widespread corruption. Many countries are classified as Least Developed Countries and receive funding from sources such as the OECD. Applying standards and aid-for-trade arrangements are becoming more relevant for middle-income countries in the region.
Join us Smallholder support
Solidaridad supports smallholders in applying good practices in a range of commodities across the region. We partner with private and public sector stakeholders to help smallholders access inputs and contribute to meaningful shifts in the landscape. Contact us to learn more.
Partner-
Contact Information
Mandla Nkomo
Managing Director, Solidaridad Southern Africa
1st Floor, 25 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, 2196 Johannesburg, South Africa