The World Bank's Agribusiness and Forestry Empowerment (AFE) program has published a comprehensive success story spotlighting Kagezi Seeds. The feature highlights our social enterprise model as a leading, scalable case study for women and youth empowerment in Zambia's agricultural sector, showing how structural market access changes livelihoods.
Traditionally, women and youth face significant barriers to entering the formal agricultural economy, including limited land rights, lack of collateral for credit, and poor access to technical networks. Kagezi Seeds addresses these barriers by welcoming them into our contract farming outgrower program, providing certified seeds and agronomic inputs on seasonal credit, and securing purchase agreements at harvest.
"Empowering women and youth in agriculture isn't just a social goal — it's an economic imperative. When you provide female and young farmers with certified seeds and technical support, they achieve some of the highest efficiency and yield increases in the sector." — Mele Nyeleti, Programmes Lead
Breaking Barriers in Agronomic Processing
The World Bank report focused on several cooperative groups in Central Province, where over 65% of the members are women and youth. Under Kagezi's supervision, these groups successfully transitioned from low-value farming to certified seed multiplication. Multiplication of specialized crops like cowpea and sunflower yields significantly higher returns per hectare than common commercial grains.
Additionally, the report highlighted the forward-thinking nature of Kagezi's value-addition program. The establishment of our processing facility in Chisamba, which manufactures the cowpea-based health beverage Nutrava, has created a steady, high-value demand for the raw crops harvested by our outgrowers. This processing structure keeps the economic value within the country and directly supports rural employment.
A Scalable Model for the Region
The World Bank's feature concludes that Kagezi's integration of science-backed crop selection, input financing, and local processing represents a model that should be replicated across Southern Africa. By showing that smallholders can participate in industrial value chains, Kagezi Seeds is paving a path toward a resilient and food-secure future.