ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the broad theme of food security, each one looking into a different aspect. It discusses food production, the environment, food trading and the impact of local administration. The chapter outlines the national strategy for rural economic survival, its social and political dimensions, and how it is perceived by Mambwe villagers. It examines the ways in which the government-approved structures for development interact among themselves in the context of a community targeted for project-induced technological and organizational change. The chapter looks at Zambia's strategy for mobilizing the rural masses. It analyses against the economic recession that has plagued Zambia since the mid-seventies, against the national need to step up food production for feeding urban areas, and against the party programme for political penetration. Although reliance on private traders is not typical of Zambia's marketing cooperatives as a whole, the practice in Mbala exposes a recurring flaw in the national effort to promote maize cropping.
