There are moments when an old idea suddenly becomes relevant again. In Zambia, as we look toward another potentially difficult climate season, one such idea can be found not in a modern economic textbook, but in an ancient agricultural instruction: do not harvest the corners of your field.Leviticus 19:9–10 and Leviticus 23:22 instruct farmers not to reap their fields completely or gather everything from the edges. What remained was to be available to the poor and vulnerable. Deuteronomy 24:19 contains a related principle: if a farmer forgot a sheaf in the field, it was to be left behind rather than collected again. Together, these formed part of a broader system of agricultural provision for vulnerable people.At first glance, this may appear to have little to do with climate change, agricultural insurance or Zambia's food-security challenges. But there is a deeper economic principle embedded in the practice: in times of abundance, deliberately preserve something that can protect society in times of scarcity.That principle was the inspiration behind a paper I wrote in 2023 titled Njala (Hunger) Insurance – Pharaoh and Joseph Climate Change Adaptation Strategy in Zambia. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/105920661/Njala_Insurance_Pharaoh_and_Joseph_Climate_Change_Adaptation_Strategy_in_Zambia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.academia.edu/105920661/Njala_Insurance_Pharaoh_and_Joseph_Climate_Change_Adaptation_Strategy_in_Zambia</a> The idea was simple: if Zambia is increasingly exposed to droughts, floods and unpredictable agricultural seasons, perhaps we should think differently about how farmers insure themselves against hunger.The conventional insurance model requires a farmer to pay a premium, usually in cash, in exchange for protection against a future loss. But for a smallholder farmer whose income is largely tied to the harvest, finding cash to pay an insurance premium can itself be a challenge. Why not allow part of the harvest to become the insurance contribution?This is the basic idea behind Njala Insurance.A farmer could, for example, contribute a small percentage of their maize harvest to a structured food-security reserve. Rather than selling or consuming every kilogram produced in a good year, a small portion would be deliberately set aside. In a bad year, that reserve could be used to provide food, income support, seed or other assistance to farmers and communities affected by climate shocks.It is, in essence, an agricultural insurance mechanism built around the physical commodity rather than solely around money.The idea also draws from the biblical story of Pharaoh and Joseph. When Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dreams as a warning of seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, his recommendation was not to wait for the famine before acting. Egypt was advised to use the years of plenty to accumulate reserves that could be drawn down when food became scarce.The economic lesson is timeless: a society that consumes all of its surplus during good times leaves itself dangerously exposed when conditions change.Zambia knows this lesson particularly well.Agriculture remains highly dependent on rainfall, while climate variability is making the traditional assumptions about farming seasons increasingly unreliable. Drought does not only reduce maize production. It affects household incomes, livestock, food prices, electricity generation, government finances and the ability of farmers to purchase inputs for the following season. A climate shock can quickly become a broader economic shock.This is why the conversation about climate adaptation needs to move beyond what happens after a disaster.We tend to think of resilience in terms of what the government will do when a drought occurs: how much maize will be imported, how much relief will be distributed, how much money will be allocated and how vulnerable households will be supported.But insurance works differently. Insurance asks us to prepare before the disaster.The developing El Niño provides another reason to have this conversation now.El Niño does not automatically mean that Zambia will experience drought, and every El Niño event is different. But Southern Africa has historically experienced significant rainfall disruptions during some El Niño events, and the emergence of a strong event should give policymakers, farmers and businesses reason to think seriously about climate preparedness.The important question is therefore not whether we can predict exactly what the 2026/27 agricultural season will look like.We probably cannot.The better question is whether Zambia can build systems that remain useful even when our predictions are wrong.That is where Njala Insurance becomes interesting.Imagine a farmer harvesting 100 bags of maize. Instead of treating all 100 bags as immediately available for consumption or sale, perhaps five are designated as a resilience contribution. The farmer retains the other 95. Across thousands or millions of farmers, those small contributions could create a significant physical reserve.The reserve could be managed through cooperatives, accredited warehouses or other appropriately regulated institutions. Digital records could track who contributed, how much was stored and what quantity remains. Weather data and agricultural monitoring systems could help determine when a particular region is experiencing a significant climate shock. Mobile money could support financial compensation where appropriate.The idea could also be combined with conventional agricultural insurance.A farmer might contribute grain to a physical reserve while also participating in weather-index insurance. The physical reserve would provide food-security protection, while financial insurance could compensate for income losses. Government could potentially provide some form of subsidy for vulnerable farmers without having to carry the entire cost of disaster response.This would turn the traditional concept of a grain reserve into something more distributed and participatory.Instead of food security being something held entirely by the state, farmers themselves could become participants in the resilience system.But there is an important warning.Njala Insurance should not become another government programme where grain disappears into warehouses, payments are delayed and political considerations determine who receives assistance. The concept would only work if it is built around transparency, accountability and trust.Every contribution would need to be recorded. Every kilogram would need to be accounted for. Storage losses would need to be independently monitored. Release conditions would need to be established before a crisis occurs. Farmers would need to know exactly what their contribution entitles them to receive when a qualifying event takes place.Technology could make this considerably easier than it was in the past.A digital platform could create a farmer-level record of contributions. Warehouse operators could maintain digital inventories. Satellite imagery and weather stations could provide independent evidence of drought conditions. Statistical models could monitor production risks. Mobile payments could distribute compensation. Blockchain may even have a limited role in creating auditable commodity records, although the basic system does not require fashionable technology to work.The important innovation is not the software.It is the institutional design.The deeper lesson from the "corners of the field" is that resilience can be built into ordinary economic behaviour. Farmers do not necessarily need to wait for a government programme to arrive after a disaster. Communities can deliberately preserve a portion of their production before the crisis.That is what makes the idea worth discussing in Zambia today.Climate adaptation is often presented as something requiring billions of dollars in new infrastructure. Those investments are important. Zambia needs irrigation, climate-smart agriculture, better meteorological systems, drought-resistant crops, improved storage and resilient energy infrastructure.But adaptation is also about institutions.It is about designing systems that allow society to absorb shocks without collapsing.A farmer who keeps part of a harvest in reserve is practising a form of adaptation. A community that maintains a grain reserve is practising adaptation. A country that builds strategic food stocks before a drought is practising adaptation.Njala Insurance simply attempts to formalise that instinct.Perhaps Zambia could test the concept rather than debate it indefinitely. A pilot could begin with a few cooperatives in drought-prone districts. Farmers could voluntarily contribute a small percentage of their maize harvest. The pilot could measure participation, storage costs, farmer satisfaction, losses, food-price effects and the ability of the reserve to provide support during a shock.If it works, the model could expand.If it fails, Zambia would learn something relatively cheaply.That is preferable to discovering the weaknesses of our food-security system in the middle of a national drought.The biblical instruction about the corners of the field was never intended as an insurance policy in the modern actuarial sense. But it contained a powerful economic idea: do not consume everything when times are good. Leave something behind for the day when circumstances change.That principle has survived in different forms across human societies. Today, we call it reserves, insurance, buffers, contingency funds and risk management.Perhaps we can call one version of it Njala Insurance.As Zambia watches the climate, the economy and the next agricultural season, we should not only ask how much we can produce.We should ask how much of what we produce we are prepared to preserve.Because the most effective response to tomorrow's hunger may begin with what we are willing to leave in the corners of today's fields.

The Corners of Zambia’s Fields: Why Njala Insurance Could Be Our Answer to the Next El Niño

A strange August shower in Lusaka may have been easy to dismiss. But behind the unusual weather is a much bigger story about a changing climate, an approaching El Niño and the economic risks Zambia should already be preparing for.On 13 August, Zambia had other things on its mind.The country was consumed by elections. Conversations revolved around polling stations, voters, political parties, turnout, results and what the next five years might look like. For a few days, almost everything else seemed secondary.And then, in parts of Lusaka, it rained. Not November rain. Not December rain. Not the familiar afternoon downpour that arrives after the clouds have gathered over the capital during the wet season. August rain.For most people, it was probably little more than an oddity. Some may have welcomed it. Others may simply have carried on with their day. In a country where rain is such a familiar part of life, it is easy to forget just how unusual rainfall can be during the heart of the dry season.Zambia's rainfall follows a remarkably distinct seasonal pattern. The wet season generally runs from around September or October through April, driven largely by the movement of the tropical rain belt. August, by contrast, sits firmly within the country's dry and cool season. The IMF describes the period from May to August as particularly dry, while climate assessments of Zambia note that rainfall is generally concentrated in the wet season.So an August shower in Lusaka is not, by itself, evidence of climate change. Nor can we say that El Niño caused the rain. Weather is too complicated for that kind of conclusion.But perhaps that is precisely why we should pay attention.The important climate story is not necessarily that it rained on one unusual August afternoon. It is that the weather patterns on which Zambia's economy has depended for generations are becoming increasingly difficult to take for granted.Climate change does not always announce itself with a dramatic flood or a catastrophic drought. Sometimes it appears in smaller ways: an unusually warm winter morning, a strange dry spell, a storm arriving at the wrong time, rainfall becoming more erratic, or a season beginning differently from what farmers have come to expect.These events can seem insignificant when viewed individually. Their significance becomes clearer when they form part of a longer pattern.And now, as Zambia looks towards the 2026–27 rainy season, another warning is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.El Niño is coming.In fact, it is already developing. The World Meteorological Organization warned earlier this year that El Niño was expected to develop from mid-2026, with the phenomenon likely to influence global temperature and rainfall patterns. By June, the WMO was putting the probability of El Niño continuing into November at around 90 percent or higher. The latest forecasts are even more striking.On 13 August — the same day Zambians were going to the polls — the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center issued an El Niño Advisory. Its latest assessment puts the probability of a very strong El Niño at more than 90 percent during the Northern Hemisphere autumn and winter of 2026–27. There is also a 69 percent probability that the October–December period could reach historically extreme levels.That does not mean Zambia will automatically experience a drought. El Niño is a global climate phenomenon and its local effects are complicated. But Southern Africa is one of the regions where the relationship between El Niño and rainfall has historically mattered greatly.For Zambia, that should immediately get the attention of anyone thinking seriously about the economy.We have been here before. The 2023–24 El Niño season produced one of the worst droughts Zambia had experienced in decades. Agriculture was badly affected, food insecurity increased and the country's dependence on hydropower became a major economic vulnerability. The drought demonstrated something that economists sometimes forget when constructing models: rainfall is an economic variable.When the rains fail, maize production suffers. When maize production falls, food prices come under pressure. When water levels decline, hydropower generation suffers. When electricity becomes unreliable, businesses reduce production or increase their operating costs. When farmers lose income, rural demand weakens. When food and electricity have to be imported, foreign-exchange pressures can increase.A climatic shock can therefore move through an economy in much the same way as a financial shock.It starts in the atmosphere and eventually arrives in household budgets, business balance sheets and government accounts.That is why the coming El Niño should not be treated as a story exclusively for farmers.It is a story for the Bank of Zambia. It is a story for the Ministry of Finance. It is a story for ZESCO, farmers, manufacturers, banks, retailers and investors. It is a story for anyone trying to understand Zambia's inflation, food security, electricity supply and economic growth over the next twelve months.The African Union has already been urging countries to move away from simply responding to climate disasters after they occur and towards anticipatory action. Its 2026 continental discussions on El Niño have specifically highlighted agriculture, energy, water, infrastructure, health and other climate-sensitive sectors.That is the right approach.Because the biggest mistake Zambia could make is to wait for the drought to become obvious before treating it as a serious economic risk.By then, the farmer may already have planted. The reservoir may already be falling. The electricity deficit may already be appearing. The price of maize may already be rising.Preparation works precisely because it happens before the crisis becomes visible.And there is a particularly uncomfortable irony about the timing of all this.Zambia has spent much of 2026 looking at politics. The election has understandably consumed public attention. The country has been debating who should lead, what policies should change and what the next political chapter will look like.But while we have been watching the ballot, another process has been unfolding thousands of kilometres away in the Pacific Ocean.El Niño does not care about election calendars.It will not wait for the new government to settle in. It will not wait for the Cabinet to be appointed. It will not wait for Parliament to debate the budget. And it certainly will not wait for Zambia to finish arguing about politics.The irony is that by the time the political dust settles, the next rainy season will already be approaching.And this is where that strange August shower becomes an interesting metaphor.We should not look at the rain that fell in Lusaka on 13 August and conclude that El Niño has arrived. That would be bad science.But neither should we look at it and shrug off the broader message: the climate system on which we have built our agriculture, energy system and economic expectations is becoming less predictable.The coming months deserve attention.If El Niño strengthens as forecast, Zambia could face a difficult 2026–27 agricultural season. The critical questions will not simply be whether it rains, but when it rains, how much it rains, how evenly that rainfall is distributed and whether there are long dry spells between rainfall events. Even a season that eventually receives reasonable total rainfall can be economically damaging if that rainfall arrives at the wrong time for crops.And that is why the country should be preparing now.Farmers need timely climate information. Energy planners need to stress-test hydropower assumptions. Government needs contingency plans for food and electricity. Businesses should consider their exposure to water, power and agricultural supply chains. Financial institutions should think about agricultural credit risk. Policymakers should incorporate climate scenarios into economic forecasts rather than treating weather as an external surprise.The lesson from the August rain is therefore not that Zambia is suddenly experiencing an El Niño.The lesson is that we should become much better at noticing the signals before they become shocks.On 13 August, Zambia was busy counting votes.Perhaps, in the months ahead, we should also start counting something else: rainfall, reservoir levels, crop conditions, temperatures and the probability of another difficult agricultural season.Because the next major economic shock may not arrive with a political speech, a currency announcement or a budget statement.It may arrive quietly in the clouds.We spent August watching the ballot. By November, we may be watching the sky.And by then, the question will no longer be whether Zambia saw the warning coming.It will be whether we prepared for it.

While Zambia Was Watching the Ballot, the Weather Was Sending a Warning

Zambia’s Treasury released K21.1 billion in July 2026 for social support, public-service wages, debt obligations, government operations and capital projects, according to a statement attributed to Secretary to the Treasury Felix Nkulukusa. The July release opened the second half of the 2026 financial year and brought cumulative Treasury releases from January to July to K152.05 billion. July therefore accounted for about 13.9 per cent of the amount released during the first seven months. Nkulukusa said the allocations were intended to translate public resources into services and tangible benefits. The figures describe funds released by the Treasury, however, and do not by themselves show how quickly receiving institutions spent the money or what outputs were delivered. How the K21.1 billion was allocatedTransfers, subsidies and social benefits: K6.3 billion, or 29.9 per cent of the July total.Public-service wage bill and related obligations: K5.9 billion, or 28.0 per cent.Debt service and domestic arrears: K4.3 billion, or 20.4 per cent.Government programmes and general operations: K3.4 billion, or 16.1 per cent.Capital expenditure: K1.2 billion, or 5.7 per cent.Transfers and the wage bill together absorbed K12.2 billion, or almost 58 per cent of the July total. Debt service and arrears accounted for roughly one-fifth, while capital expenditure represented less than 6 per cent. Percentages may not add precisely to 100 because of rounding. Food security and farmer supportThe Food Reserve Agency received K2.7 billion, making it the largest specifically identified beneficiary under the July transfers. The Farmer Input Support Programme received K660 million, taking cumulative FISP releases for 2026 to K6.4 billion. Those allocations place food security and agricultural support near the centre of the month’s spending priorities. Their practical effect will depend on timely crop purchases, farmer payments, input procurement and transparent beneficiary management. The Zambian Economist has previously examined why speed and transparency are central to FRA crop marketing. Social protection and educationThe Social Cash Transfer Programme received K564.2 million, bringing its cumulative 2026 releases to K2.3 billion. Schools received K841.4 million in grants for the free education programme, taking school grants released during the year to K2.4 billion. Grant-aided institutions, including hospitals and universities, received K709.3 million. A further K507.3 million went to the Public Service Pension Fund for pension obligations. Roads lead the capital allocationCapital expenditure totalled a rounded K1.2 billion. The statement identified K592 million for roads, K243.3 million for water infrastructure, K188.9 million for rehabilitation of the National Assembly buildings, K101.3 million for education infrastructure and K50 million for mini-hospital projects. The listed projects add up to K1.1755 billion, broadly consistent with the rounded capital total. Roads alone accounted for just over half of the specified capital allocations. Debt payments remain a major claim on cashTreasury released K4.3 billion for domestic and external debt service and the dismantling of domestic arrears. The statement did not provide a further split among those three obligations. Nkulukusa said continued debt servicing and arrears clearance were important for fiscal credibility and for creating room for investment and economic growth. The allocation also illustrates the continuing pressure that past obligations place on funds available for current services and development. What the release figures do not yet showA Treasury release is an important step in budget execution, but it is not the same as verified expenditure or a completed project. A fuller assessment would require information from the receiving institutions on utilisation rates, procurement, beneficiary coverage, arrears cleared and measurable service outcomes. The Treasury said the second-half focus would be on converting available resources into stronger services, productive infrastructure, economic opportunities and improved livelihoods. It also said expenditure would be prioritised to protect key programmes as geopolitical developments place pressure on global petroleum supplies and fuel prices.

Treasury Releases K21.1 Billion for July Services and Debt

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The Corners of Zambia’s Fields: Why Njala Insurance Could Be Our Answer to the Next El Niño

While Zambia Was Watching the Ballot, the Weather Was Sending a Warning

Treasury Releases K21.1 Billion for July Services and Debt