Universal Energy Access, Agricultural Growth, and Sustainable Land Use: Zambia's Policy Roadmap to 2050 - Technical brief

Abstract

This technical brief argues for the need of integrated land, energy and water resource use planning for achieving the Zambia National Energy Compact’s ambitious targets of domestic production of maize, wheat and soybean. By using the CLEWs modelling framework, we show that the least-cost pathway for achieving the targets includes the mechanization of agriculture, with rainfed and irrigated commercial-scale farming respectively covering 24.7% and 19.8% of the abovementioned crops’ total harvested area by 2050. This increases the pressure on groundwater resources (up to more than 1000% increased use) and the need for electricity for pumping (up to 0.85 GW by 2050), highlighting the need for infrastructure planning and for diversification of the primary supply. Solar PV can be a low-cost option for supporting the electrification of irrigation, while contributing to the Integrated Resource Plan’s targets of 33% non-hydro renewable electricity supply by 2050.The authors acknowledge the financial support from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The authors would like to acknowledge also the funding from UK Aid from the UK Government via the Climate Compatible Growth programme. However, the views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies.