Causal Relationship Between Maize Production and Its Price in Zambia

Abstract

In Zambia, changes in food prices specifically maize prices have received much of the attention of late because of its effect on national food security, farming systems, and political-economic conditions of the country. Measures have been taken in order to prevent future food crises and to achieve zero hunger by 2030 as per Sustainable Development Goal number 2 targets 2.4 and 2.c. The national strategies to stabilise the price and influence productivity depend on availability of data from different researchers. Most studies on maize production in Zambia have focused on climatic and demographic factors with insufficient efforts taken in addressing price changes on maize production. The article examined the consequences of changing price from 1990 to 2021 of maize on maize production in Zambia. It used a cross sectional research design to analyse secondary data from Zambia Statistics Agency and Food Agriculture Organization. The use of Granger causality test (time series) during analysis revealed unidirectional causation between price and production. This implies that price of maize is the Granger cause of maize production (p-value = 0.0010). The increase of price of maize influences maize productivity among peasants. The policy implication stemming from this study is that since price influences maize production, controlling maize production without stabilizing price levels cannot be enough to boost the agricultural economy and alleviate poverty. The government needs to control maize prices to meet the domestic self-sufficient and affordable prices.