In Malawi, maize is life – the cereal is the main staple with more than 70 percent of all agricultural plots in the country used for maize farming. This strong dependence on maize has led to a poorly diversified agricultural system with limited dietary diversity. The government of Malawi implements a Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) to enhance food self-sufficiency by increasing smallholder farmers’ access to and use of improved agricultural inputs. Since 2009, the program also includes the distribution of legume seeds to improve diversity of agricultural production
Mirriam Matita, Lecturer at the Department of Rural Development and Extension at LUANAR University Malawi explores the effect of the distribution of legume seeds on dietary diversity as part of her ongoing PhD thesis. Matita presented preliminary results of her research in an IFPRI Malawi seminar on December 12, 2018. Using available data from the Integrated Household Panel Survey IHPS (2013) and IHPS 4 (2016/17), she defined dietary diversity as the number of food groups consumed over past one week of survey, separated into 12 food groups. Matita then developed fixed-effect ‘Poisson’ models to assess the effect of economic, socio-demographic, and seasonality factors along with the distribution of FISP vouchers on dietary diversity.
While the receipt of any subsidy coupons did not have a significant effect, the study found indications that the redemption of legume vouchers could indeed have a significant positive effect on dietary diversity. Matita also noted that wealth, in terms of livestock ownership or access to assets, is one of the biggest contributors to increased dietary diversity. On the other hand, the study found indications that the redemption of maize vouchers might decrease dietary diversity and that poverty is the biggest driver for decreased dietary diversity.
The seminar concluded with a group discussion where participants reflected on the findings and offered comments, especially on the definition of dietary diversity and models used.
The presentation can be viewed below:
