In Malawi, accurate information on farm gate prices is hard to obtain. However, it is important to monitor farm gate prices to determine if they incentivize future agricultural production, especially at this time of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted the global agri-food systems with significant impacts on global food security, nutrition, and poverty. Most agricultural price monitoring in Malawi focuses on retail prices and only the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MoAFS) through its Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) collects data on farm gate prices across the country. However, AMIS data collection of farm gate prices only occurs infrequently and not every year, which results in substantial data gaps.
To close these gaps, IFPRI is crowdsourcing farm gate prices countrywide through the Farm Radio Trust (FRT) platform. Funded by the UK Department of International Development (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the current study is collecting farm gate prices for maize and soybeans. Both crops play an important role in smallholder agriculture in Malawi, both as a source of farm income and due to their contributions to food and nutrition security. The study began on April 2 and is expected to be completed by the end of July 2020. It builds on a previous pilot crowdsourcing study covering farm gate prices for pigeon peas and chickpeas in 13 districts in the South between August and October 2019.
The current study asks farmers to report received prices, quantities, and location via SMS or by calling a toll-free number managed by FRT whenever they sell maize or soybeans during the 2020 marketing season. To make farmers aware of the study, three local radio stations (MBC, Zodiak, and Voice of Livingstonia) are airing radio jingles in local dialects (Chichewa and Chitumbuka) throughout the study period. To encourage farmer participation, the numbers from received calls and SMS are entered into a weekly draw. Participants have the chance to win a coupon worth MWK 25,000 (US$33), redeemable for farm inputs at any Agora or Farmers World farm input outlet across the country.
Preliminary findings
During the first one and half months of the study, a total of 239 maize farmers and 417 soybean farmers reported their crop sales to Farm Radio Trust. 93% of the respondents were male and most sold their crops to vendors (Figure 1). The majority of sales took place at nearby markets (45% for maize, 59% for soybeans) or at the farm gate (31% for maize, 33% for soybeans). Most respondents (69%) came from the Central Region, which contains the principal maize and soybean producing districts in Malawi.
Table 1 provides an overview of the average selling prices and quantities reported. Prices received by farmers for maize ranged from MWK 70/kg to MWK 250/kg. The mean selling price was MWK 147/kg and the average quantity sold was 360 kg. For soybeans, the mean price was MWK 224/kg while the mean quantity sold was MWK 366/kg. The prices farmers received for soybeans ranged from MWK 80/kg to MWK 550/kg.
From April 7, 2020, the minimum farm gate prices set by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security were MWK 200/kg for maize and MWK 300/kg for soybeans. Our preliminary findings show that 72% of maize farmers and 93% of soybean farmers have sold their crops at below the official minimum prices this season. On average, the prices received by farmers for their maize and soybeans were approximately three-quarters of the relevant minimum farm gate prices (73.5% for maize and 74.7% for soybeans).
Looking ahead
Crowdsourcing farm gate prices can augment data collected by AMIS at relatively low cost. This enables robust price analysis to inform policy makers on the effectiveness of price policies and facilitates market efficiency. Together with retail prices, such data can support the analysis of farm gate-retail margins and the deviations of actual prices from official prices. It can also help in examining the effects of COVID-19 on food markets in Malawi. In the longer term, better price information and more competitive farm gate prices are likely to stimulate increased production of many crops.
