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AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES IN
THE BASIN
The basin has 15 agro-climatological zones. These
vary in rainfall and growing season. Maize, tea, tobacco,
coffee, sugar, wheat and cotton are some of the
major crops produced under commercial agriculture.
Tea, tobacco, coffee, sugar and wheat are generally
grown through irrigation but in some cases, these
crops are also grown under rainfed agriculture. The
commercial agriculture sector is highly mechanized.
However, much labour is still required and usually
poor rural communities provide the labour force.
Ninety percent of Malawi’s cultivated land is in the
basin while Zambia has 76 percent of its cultivated
land in the basin and Zimbabwe has 56 percent.
Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe dominate in cattle
rearing with 90 percent of the animals in the basin.
FARMING SYSTEMS
The Zambezi basin can be divided into three parts,
the upper, middle and lower Zambezi in which different
farming systems take place. Maize is however,
the major crop with highest yields occurring in
the upper Zambezi and lowest hectarage by district
found in Botswana.
The Upper Zambezi
Angola and Zambia dominate in the upper Zambezi
basin but fertile land is in Angola. Most of this land has
not been utilized because of the civil war that lasted
nearly 30 years. The eastern region is mainly used for
agriculture but they also do some fishing. Crops
grown include cassava, soya beans, maize and rice.
In the upper Zambezi, cash cropping has been
limited to tobacco and cotton production mainly in
the Kaomo area. Attempts to grow cashew nuts
have not been successful along the margins of the
main Zambezi floodplain.
Sunflower and millet are grown throughout the
Upper Zambezi basin with very high yields and
hectarage in the Cuando/Chobe sub-basin in
Angola; in the Caprivi Strip; and in the Barotse and
Luanginga. The productive areas are areas not covered
by the Kalahari sands in the Angolan highlands
and parts of Solwezi, Kabompo, Mufumbwe,
Kasempa and Kaoma in Zambia.
Livestock rearing is a major component of the
farming system, particularly around the floodplains.
Here, cattle for example migrate from floodplains in
summer to higher surrounding land.
The shifting slash-and-burn system of subsistence
agriculture is now giving way to a more settled
state due to population pressure. In Botswana,
subsistence cultivation of cereals is the major agricultural
activity in the area. Commercial farming
agriculture in this area is not viable.
Within the Caprivi area of Namibia, the only irrigated
crops are a few hectares of tobacco and maize. The
rest of the crops are rainfed and these include the dryland
crops such as maize, sorghum, millet and riverfields
on the floodplains where vegetables are grown.
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