Up until last year, the decade-long Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) - a national programme designed to improve resource poor smallholder farmers’ access to improved agricultural inputs- had remained largely unchanged despite some criticisms about areas for improvement. A set of reforms finally came in 2016/17. A new policy brief published by the UK Aid […]
Discussion Paper 1653: Does Providing Agricultural and Nutrition Information to Both Men and Women Improve Household Food Security? Evidence from Malawi
Malawi is among the countries in Africa south of the Sahara where millions of smallholder farmers rely on agriculture to ensure their families’ livelihoods, yet low land productivity, inadequate agricultural inputs, labor limitations, and erratic rains translate into widespread food shortages, hunger, and poverty. Particularly in Malawi, poverty, food insecurity, and undernutrition remain significant problems […]
Discussion Paper 1654: Limited Attention and Information Loss in the Lab-to-Farm Knowledge Chain: The Case of Malawian Agricultural Extension Programs
Agricultural extension plays a crucial role in promoting agricultural productivity, increasing food security, improving rural livelihoods, and promoting agriculture as an engine of economic growth in developing countries. Yet, for agricultural knowledge to move from theory into practice, or from lab to field, extension services provide a critical linkage directly to farmers. In a new […]
Working Paper 17: Localized public investment and agricultural performance in Malawi: An econometric approach
Using panel data econometric techniques, this paper evaluates how public expenditure influences agricultural performance at the district level in Malawi by empirically estimating localized expenditure multipliers for the districts. The results of the analysis show that public expenditures in agriculture have generally been positive, with variable impacts on agricultural growth at the district level. The […]
Policy Note 26: Under what policy and market conditions will Malawi’s smallholder farmers switch from tobacco to soyabean?
Malawi has the potential to reorient its smallholder agriculture away from being primarily directed towards assuring household subsistence and self-sufficiency to increased commercial production, including of soybean. This study shows how this shift would reduce the country’s reliance on tobacco and diversify its agricultural production and exports. As a legume, furthermore, soybean would also have […]
