Enhancing the performance and inclusiveness of agricultural extension, markets, and cooperatives - new three-year Flanders project
Smallholder agriculture is the backbone of Malawi’s economy with 88% employed in the sector particularly women and youth. At the same time, crop yields are decreasing. Innovative agricultural extension services are a crucial component to stop this trend and build farmers’ productive capacities, while markets are vital to their incomes. A new IFPRI research project will investigate extension services and markets and define policy recommendations that aim to enhance the performance and inclusiveness of agricultural extension, markets, and cooperatives in Malawi. The project is funded by the Government of Flanders and builds on research results of the Pluralistic Agricultural Extension Project. Centered on a series of rigorous assessments in the agricultural sector in Malawi, the project will enable policy makers and implementers to strengthen information flows, improve the performance of markets, and build the capacity of farmer organizations. The project’s general objective is to guide the design of policies and programs that will improve the productivity and profitability of smallholder agriculture, increase the incomes of farm households, and enhance the food security of all Malawians.
The key components are:
- Continuation of research to strengthen agricultural extension services
- Continuation of research to make agricultural markets in Malawi more efficient and inclusive
- New research on agricultural cooperatives
- Rapid analyses on emerging agriculture and food security issues.
Key activities include the preparation and implementation of a third round of nationally representative rural household surveys focusing on agricultural extension in 2021. The project will furthermore conduct rigorous assessments of market-oriented extension services for different types of smallholder farmers and markets, including randomized control trials to examine the efficacy of modalities to provide agricultural advice. The project will also conduct analyses of two commodity-marketing systems, including studies of the groundnut or soybean value chains to examine ways to build inclusive value chains for women and the youth. A further study aims to understand how and why commodity prices vary across agricultural markets. Finally, a study on the structure and performance of primary agricultural cooperatives will develop a baseline understanding of the inner workings of agricultural cooperatives in Malawi.
The project will be implemented over three years from mid-2020 to mid-2023. COVID-19 regulations and restrictions may, however, delay the start of fieldwork. The research team includes senior research staff from IFPRI Malawi (Bob Baulch, Jan Duchoslav and Dennis Ochieng), as well as Catherine Ragasa and Todd Benson from IFPRI Washington, DC. The senior research staff will be supported by IFPRI Research Analysts from Lilongwe and from Washington, DC.
The project is funded by the Government of Flanders.
