How Can the Zambian Government Improve the Targeting of the Farmer Input Support Program?

The Farmer Input Support Program (FISP, formerly the Fertilizer Support Program) has expanded the scale of its fertilizer distribution from 48,000 metric tons (MT) in 2002/03, when the program started, to nearly 183,000 MT in the 2012/2013 farming season. Yet, after more than a decade of input subsidies, rural poverty rates have remained persistently high at around 80%. Poor targeting of FISP inputs may partially explain the lack of progress on addressing persistently high rural poverty levels over the last decade.