Agriculture accounts for only 22% of Zambia's GDP, but employs perhaps 85% of its workforce. Zambia's varied topography encourages a wide diversity in the crops cultivated. Most farming is still done by small-scale subsistence farmers, although large commercial farms are gradually appearing, often financed by private investors. There remain many fertile areas that are not being exploited, largely because of the lack of infrastructure in rural parts of the country.

Zambia's main crops and agricultural products are maize (the staple food for most people), sorghum, rice, peanuts, soya beans, sunflowers, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, cassava, cattle, goats, beef and eggs.

More recently, the 'floricultural' sector has started to bloom for export. That consists of roses, vegetables, fruit, coffee and tea. Many of these enterprises are located near Lusaka's main airport, to ensure that flowers and vegetables are freshly delivered; there's a thriving trade in export growers chartering cargo planes to Europe. Processing and packaging companies are developing in parallel with this, with some companies supplying packaged vegetables to British supermarkets.

Other industrial sectors

Zambia's manufacturing industry accounts for about 11% of its GDP, but its costs are high and so it isn't very competitive regionally. The domestic market is small, therefore most small industries need to develop larger economies of scale before they can compete with, say, South African companies. Areas with potential for this include food, cement, tobacco and textiles.