Books and Book Chapters

Food system diagnostics and policy implications: The Malawi case

Food systems are at the heart of Africa’s economic growth and development plan, Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want. Without ending hunger and improving the food and nutrition status of Africa’s population, the agenda’s first aspiration for a “prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development” cannot be effectively reached. To realize this aspiration, African countries need to progressively implement the seven Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) Malabo commitments while having strategies to address wider food system challenges (AU 2023). The concept of a food system has various definitions, but for the purposes of this chapter, a food system is considered as a network of actors or players and their activities along the entire food value chain from inputs to production, distribution, and consumption. This aligns with the definition espoused by the Scientific Group of the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), that food systems are constitutive of food actors and their interlinked activities from production all the way to consumption or utilization (von Braun et al. 2020).

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens food security in Malawi: How can the country respond?

Food insecurity is endemic in Malawi, affecting up to 38% of the population every year in the run-up to the harvest in April. Although geographically distant, there are multiple channels through which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can make matters worse this year. The conflict has disrupted global supplies of key cereals, vegetable oils, and fertilizers, pushing already-high prices higher, and putting particular pressure on low-income countries with vulnerable poor populations. In this post we discuss how rising wheat, maize, cooking oil, and fertilizer prices are likely to impact Malawi and how the government can respond.

Selected country experiences during the pandemic: Policy responses and CGIAR support

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, CGIAR pivoted its research planning to better support countries as they responded to the crisis. Despite the unprecedented, highly disruptive nature of the pandemic, CGIAR’s collaborative country work has enhanced engagement across the agrifood sector, leveraged existing capacities, and improved awareness of vulnerabilities within value chains. The insights gained from this experience may ultimately prove useful in addressing other longstanding challenges as well. In this chapter, we recount selected country experiences during the pandemic and the response of the international agricultural research system to support these countries. In the section on country experiences, we draw from IFPRI’s COVID-19 Policy Response Portal (CPR) to focus on lockdown policies in Bangladesh, Kenya, and Nigeria. We describe the steps taken by governments in these countries to address challenges in the agrifood sector and provide social protection to the vulnerable.

Disentangling food security from subsistence agriculture in Malawi

Malawi’s many smallholders rely heavily on rainfed, low-input subsistence farming to meet their food needs. Yet for most rural Malawian households, subsistence agriculture cannot consistently produce enough food to ward off hunger. Nor can they rely on the country’s weak markets to buy additional food they may require or to profitably sell their agricultural products throughout the year. Government policies have long prioritized agricultural production among marginal farmers for food security rather than broader policies of economic diversification, market expansion, and growth. The book identifies crucial changes that could improve food security and, in the long term, facilitate agricultural transformation. Decades of research in Malawi are synthesized to propose policy solutions for the country’s persistent food insecurity and for agricultural transformation that could drive long-term economic growth. This work should be useful to policymakers, development specialists, and others concerned with how Malawi or other countries facing similar rural economic development challenges can realize sustainable food security.

This record also includes the synopsis: Benson, Todd. 2021. Disentangling food security from subsistence agriculture in Malawi: Synopsis. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294073

Mutual accountability in African agricultural transformation

This chapter aims to deepen our understanding of both the conceptual framework of mutual accountability and its best practices in the context of agricultural transformation in Africa. We do so in three ways: documenting the need for and growth of mutual accountability mechanisms over time, discussing how mutual accountability processes contribute to agricultural transformation, and examining the effectiveness of the mutual accountability processes of choice— JSRs and the African agricultural BR. In the next section, we provide a brief review of the origins and theory of mutual accountability as well as its application in African agriculture. Following that, we discuss how mutual accountability is being operationalized through JSRs and the Malabo BR, and the effectiveness of the two processes. The section after empirically assesses the contribution of mutual accountability to agricultural transformation in Africa. The final section provides concluding remarks for driving agricultural transformation through mutual accountability processes.

Agricultural extension: Global status and performance in selected countries

Agricultural transformation and development are critical to the livelihoods of more than a billion small-scale farmers and other rural people in developing countries. Extension and advisory services play an important role in such transformation and can assist farmers with advice and information, brokering and facilitating innovations and relationships, and dealing with risks and disasters. Agricultural Extension: Global Status and Performance in Selected Countries provides a global overview of agricultural extension and advisory services, assesses and compares extension systems at the national and regional levels, examines the performance of extension approaches in a selected set of country cases, and shares lessons and policy insights. Drawing on both primary and secondary data, the book contributes to the literature on extension by applying a common and comprehensive framework — the “best-fit” approach — to assessments of extension systems, which allows for comparison across cases and geographies. Insights from the research support reforms — in governance, capacity, management, and advisory methods — to improve outcomes, enhance financial sustainability, and achieve greater scale. Agricultural Extension should be a valuable resource for policymakers, extension practitioners, and others concerned with agricultural development.

Forward by Gary Alex. Preface by Frank Place. This book was translated into Japanese in 2022.
Davis, Kristin E., ed.; Babu, Suresh Chandra, ed.; and Ragasa, Catherine, ed. 2020. Agricultural extension: Global status and performance in selected countries [in Japanese]. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.136539

This record also includes the following synopsis:
Davis, Kristin E., ed.; Babu, Suresh Chandra, ed.; and Ragasa, Catherine, ed. 2020. Agricultural extension: Global status and performance in selected countries: Synopsis. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896293762

Introduction and motivation

Agricultural development is critical to the livelihoods of more than a billion small-scale farmers and other rural populations in developing countries. Challenges such as low productivity, persistent food insecurity and malnutrition, food price crises, natural resource depletion, changing and uncertain markets, environmental degradation, and climate change directly impact (and are impacted by) the agriculture sector and rural development. Agricultural extension and advisory services can help address these challenges by assisting farmers with advice and information, brokering and facilitating innovations and relationships, dealing with risks and disasters, and in many other ways.

Malawi [In Agricultural Extension]

A number of initiatives are being implemented in response to this identified need. Among them, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) implemented a five-year project (Strengthening Agricultural and Nutrition Extension [SANE]), and the European Union currently funds a five-year project (KULIMA), both of which primarily focus on extension services and their links to agricultural research. Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MoAIWD) has also requested a study to look closely at the state of extension services provision, with the intent to further strengthen it to contribute to food security, economic growth, and other development goals. This has led to the three-year project (Assessing and Enhancing the Capacity, Performance, and Impact of the Pluralistic Agricultural Extension System in Malawi), funded by the government of Flanders and the German Agency for International Development, led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). This chapter summarizes the assessment data collected from this IFPRI project, synthesizes its research papers, and extensively reviews relevant literature on the evaluation of extension services approaches in Malawi. The chapter is structured following the best-fit framework discussed in Birner et al. (2009) and presented in Chapter 2.

Conclusions and policy implications [In Agricultural Extension]

The two objectives of this book are to assess extension and advisory services in a cross-country comparative context in the following ways: 1. Provide a description and comparison of the existing extension services in the regions and countries under consideration focused on a set of characteristics; and 2. Provide an assessment of the performance of extension services provision and impact evaluation of extension approaches in selected case study countries. Objective 1 addresses specific extension characteristics from the best-fit framework that include governance structures, capacity, management, and advisory methods. Part 1 offers a global overview based on primary data as well as regional and country cases based on primary and secondary data. Objective 2 undertakes in-depth country-level case studies based on primary and secondary data (Part 2). The best-fit conceptual framework allows some comparability of selected characteristics and results across geographies. The book generates specific policy recommendations that will be of use to government agencies, development partners, academics, and coordinating bodies for agricultural extension services. With the best-fit framework that allows for comparative analysis of selected characteristics (governance structures, capacity, management, and advisory methods), the book also demonstrates the process of extension system assessment through country-level case studies.

National food systems: Inclusive transformation for healthier diets

Policymakers need to know what policies, investments, and actions they can take to ensure food systems transform in a healthy, sustainable, and equitable way. KEY FINDINGS - The rapid transformation of national food systems offers new opportunities for inclusion of poor and marginalized people, potentially improving dietary diversity, food safety, and quality. - As food systems transform across the spectrum from traditional to modern, government policy goals need to shift from a focus on food security to healthy, bal-anced diets. - National food system frameworks are useful tools for looking at the drivers and components of these systems, identifying data gaps, and finding promising entry points for actions to increase inclusion and improve nutri-tion outcomes. - Approaches to food system transformation must be country specific, as each country’s food system is unique and countries face different opportunities and trade-offs for inclusiveness at different stages of transformation.

Can migration be a conduit for transformative youth employment?

Chapter 2 uses new household survey data to investigate youth migration patterns in four African countries, paying particular attention to the effect of land scarcity on young people’s decision to migrate to urban centres. Despite urbanization, rural job creation is a major policy goal for many African governments. However, it is unclear whether national polices adequately reflect and address the constraints facing young job seekers in agriculture and rural areas.

Change and rigidity in youth employment patterns in Malawi

Chapter 6 addresses Malawi’s weak agricultural transformation, and asks if rural households, particularly youth, are engaging in multiple forms of employment that may not be adequately reflected in national data.

Moving beyond maize: The evolution of Malawi's agriculture-nutrition policy dialogue

This chapter examines the headway that has been made in Malawi in bringing the agriculture sector on board as a partner in addressing malnutrition multisectorally, and the factors that are driving progress. It also examines the challenges and gaps that remain both in framing the issue and moving from rhetoric to action.

Agriculture for improved nutrition: Seizing the momentum

Agriculture's vast potential to improve nutrition is just beginning to be tapped. New ideas, research, and initiatives developed over the past decade have created an opportunity for reimagining and redesigning agricultural and food systems for the benefit of nutrition. To support this transformation, the book reviews the latest findings, results from on-the-ground programs and interventions, and recent policy experiences from countries around the world that are bringing the agriculture and nutrition sectors closer together. Drawing on IFPRI's own work and that of the growing agriculture-nutrition community, this book strengthens the evidence base for, and expands our vision of, how agriculture can contribute to nutrition. Chapters cover an array of issues that link agriculture and nutrition, including food value chains, nutrition-sensitive programs and policies, government policies, and private sector investments. By highlighting both achievements and setbacks, Agriculture for Improved Nutrition seeks to inspire those who want to scale up successes that can transform food systems and improve the nutrition of billions of people.

Improving agriculture’s contribution to nutrition in Malawi: A conceptual introduction

With Malawian diets heavily dominated by staple foods—maize first and foremost, but also rice and cassava in some areas—food security in Malawi is often equated with having access to enough maize. What is missing in this traditional measure of food security in Malawi is the importance of the quality, in addition to the quantity, of dietary intake. This household-level scenario is reflected in, and exacerbated by, national development priorities; food security is a top-line agenda item for agriculture in Malawi, whereas nutrition is still considered primarily a health issue. To guide analysis and action in this complex environment, we present a conceptual framework to illuminate the multiple and complex linkages from agriculture to food security and nutrition. This framework reveals a number of ways in which the agriculture sector can help strengthen diet quality. These include: (1) promoting production of nutrient-dense foods via subsidies and other incentives; (2) promoting food processing, marketing, and consumption in ways that conserve nutrients, create demand, and decrease prices; and (3) supporting women farmers through, for example, targeted efforts to increase their productivity and bargaining power.

Irrigated farming and improved nutrition in Malawian farm households

This chapter provides selected findings from an assessment of whether increased use in the dry season of irrigated farming by smallholders in Malawi might improve household-level dietary diversity or child nutrition outcomes. We find no strong association between the use of irrigation by farm households in Malawi and the growth performance of those households’ children. However, we do find that irrigating households tend to have more diverse diets than households that do not irrigate, leading to the hypothesis that irrigation enables households to produce a wider range of crops for home consumption than they can with purely rainfed production. In line with these results, we also find that irrigation reduces the negative effects of seasonal food insecurity. The insight we take from these findings is that one of the principal contributions that irrigation can make to improved nutrition outcomes, particularly for subsistence farming households, is to ensure reliable, year-round access to a diverse diet that facilitates access to micronutrient-rich foods, such as vegetables.

Indicators for examining links between agriculture, food security, and nutrition

How can the nutrition impactof agriculture programsbe assessed? Depending on context, data may need to be collected on production practices for food, livestock, and cash crops; post–farm gate value chain and other market-based activities; commodity prices; household food security; women’s empowerment; dietary quality and quantity, and nutritional status. This chapter provides a primer3 on commonly used indicators for these processes and outcomes: diet and nutritional status; household food security; gender, household decision making, and empowerment; agricultural production, productivity, and diversification; and food markets and prices. The importance of dietary quality as a key intermediary between agriculture and nutrition is emphasized throughout this chapter. Individual dietary quality is best measured by dietary diversity as dietary diversity indicators have been repeatedly validated as predictive of nutritional adequacy. Individual dietary quality is a key outcome to measure the success of most agricultural programs and policies, if an impact on population well-being is desired. However, in many countries the surveys which collect data on individual dietary patterns (and other nutrition indicators) are not the same as those which collect information on agricultural production. While justifiable from a sectoral perspective, this “data disconnect” poses a challenge to analyzing agriculture–nutrition links.

Conclusions: The key role of agriculture in achieving better diets in Malawi

This report combines international evidence with new primary and secondary analyses of Malawian data to understand the different pathways linking agriculture, food security, and nutrition for households in Malawi and to illuminate different dimensions of these links. In addition to outlining different theoretical and methodological approaches to studying these connections, this report provides evidence on the role of commodity production, food prices, agricultural diversification, and irrigation in changing household food security and access to different nutrients, as well as impacts on individual diets and nutrition. This chapter provides a summary of the empirical chapters, draws out some key themes, and suggests some implications for Malawi and other countries with a large agriculture sector that concurrently face issues of food insecurity, hunger, and malnutrition.

Food and nutrition security implications of crop diversification in Malawi’s farm households

This chapter provides selected details from a study of the links between crop production diversity and dietary diversity among Malawian households. We use data from Malawi’s Third Integrated Household Survey (2010–2011) to construct a food group–based, household-level dietary diversity score. To sharpen our “nutrition lens,” we also construct indicators for household-level access to micronutrients. Results indicate significant and positive associations between food crop production diversification and both types of indicators. The strongest associations are for households’ micronutrient access. Production diversification is associated with a 35 percent increase in access to iron, a 47 percent increase in access to vitamin A, a 45 percent increase in access to folate, and a 35 percent increase in access to zinc. As deficiencies in these micronutrients continue to present a public health challenge in Malawi, these findings support the hypothesis that crop production diversification is a viable option to increase nutrition sensitivity in agriculture.

Poverty, food prices, and dietary choices in Malawi

This chapter reports on the links between household food consumption choices, food prices, and household income, using data from Malawi’s Second (2004–2005) and Third (2010–2011) Integrated Household Surveys. Results indicate that while income poverty appears to have decreased on average, substantial disparities remain and are indeed increasing, with the richest quintile becoming disproportionately better off, and the poorest of the poor becoming even worse off, a trend that may well shape nutritional outcomes in the future. Further, all but the richest households appear to be spending more money on food than in the past, although much of this trend is likely explained by a relative decline in the cost of nonfood goods. Trends in food consumption appear mixed. They include some predictable responses. For example, with respect to maize nationwide, prices decreased and consumption increased, while for leafy greens, prices increased and consumption decreased nationwide. More unpredictable responses were also observed. These include an increase in consumption of red meat, fruit, rice, and fish nationwide, despite rising prices for all four commodities. Based on these results, indicators for household-level access to micronutrients were constructed to estimate household access to vitamin A and iron, as well as total calories. Results indicate substantial shortfalls across income quintiles for iron in rural areas, and vitamin A shortfalls nationwide. And while access to calories improved overall, significant differences exist in the levels and rate of decline in rural and urban areas, with the improvement in urban households being far greater.

Understanding household preferences on the production, consumption, and sale of nutritious crops

Value chains and agricultural commercialization are increasingly promoted as mechanisms for agricultural transformation, inclusive growth, and, more recently, improved food security and diets. In particular, donors and implementers of nutrition and food security programs are promoting the production of nutritious crops as a mechanism for improving the quality of and diversity in the diets of the rural poor. However, while a theoretical basis exists for suggesting that production of these crops may improve diets, there is limited empirical understanding of how agricultural production impacts diets (impact pathways) and under what circumstances production of nutritious foods can lead to improved diets. This chapter examines pathways from production to diets by analyzing qualitative data collected from three districts in three regions of Malawi. The analysis specifically explores contemporary food preferences, patterns, and decisions related to crop sales, and gendered household decision-making dynamics. The results indicate that households desire diverse diets, but access to (affordability) and availability of diverse foods are limiting factors, as is a dominant maize-first approach to assuring household food security. In addition, many nutritious crops that households produce are both consumed and sold. Decisions about what or how much to sell are based on consideration of a range of factors. Nutrition training—promoting consumer demand for key commodities—combined with value chain approaches to decrease price and increase availability might successfully improve diets in this context.

Did rapid smallholder-led agricultural growth fail to reduce rural poverty? Making sense of Malawi’s poverty puzzle

Whither Participation? Evaluating Participatory Policy Processes Using the CGPE Approach: The Case of CAADP in Malawi

In this chapter, we apply the CGPE model to analyzing the performance of policy processes with respect to the production of efficient policy choices. Within the CGPE approach participation of stakeholder organizations is modeled in two ways. First, as classical lobbying influence and second as informational influence within a model of political belief formation. An empirical application of the CGPE model to CAADP reforms in Malawi delivered the following results: (i) inefficient agricultural policies mainly result from lack of adequate political knowledge, while biased political incentives play only a minor rule. (ii) Policy beliefs of political practitioners differ significantly from economic models. Hence, our analyses imply a cleavage between the world of economic modeling and the world of political practice. (iii) As Bayesian estimation combining objective knowledge of scientific models with the subjective wisdom of practitioners results in a compromise of both worlds, we conclude that adequate political knowledge does not yet exist in the scientific system or in political praxis and must be created in the political process. (iv) Therefore, the only effective political therapy corresponds to the application of adequate tools that facilitate interactive communication and policy learning among stakeholders and economic modelers.

Micro-econometric and Micro-Macro Linked Models: Modeling agricultural growth and nutrition linkages: Lessons from Tanzania and Malawi

While growth is necessary for poverty reduction, the extent to which poverty declines depends on its level and structure as well as characteristics of the poor. Agricultural growth in particular has been shown to be effective at reducing poverty in developing countries. For this reason there is also a perception that agricultural growth improves food and nutrition security outcomes, whether through home-production-for-own-consumption or household income channels. However, evidence in this regard is more mixed. Drawing on economywide modeling analyses, this paper explores methods for analyzing the complex linkages between (agricultural) growth, poverty, and food and nutrition security outcomes in developing country contexts. We find that the structure of growth and linkages between poor or malnourished households and the economy indeed strongly influence welfare outcomes. However, modeling analyses still fall short in accurately characterizing the “utilization” dimension of food security; for example, improvements in health or education associated with growth may improve the responsiveness of nutrition to higher agricultural productivity or household incomes. Some areas for model development and further research are identified.

Factors influencing the effectiveness of productivity-enhancing interventions: an assessment of selected programs

The preceding chapter has shown that agricultural intensification paths differ markedly in different farming systems and are influenced significantly by population density; yield-enhancing technologies, such as fertilizer, may have been used more as instruments for expanding cultivated area, rather than for increasing yield; and further in-country analysis is needed to sharpen the policy implications of these findings. This chapter assesses selected productivity-enhancing interventions across Africa, with the aim of distilling lessons on key factors contributing to the effectiveness of such interventions. Intervention as used here stands for programs, projects, strategies, or other agricultural development initiatives, and effectiveness refers to the extent to which the objectives of the intervention were achieved, taking into account their relative importance (OECD 2010).

Associations between irrigated farming and improved nutrition in Malawian farm households

Expansion of irrigation is a recurrent objective of the agricultural development plans formulated by successive governments in Malawi. More intensive and continual use of Malawi’s water and agricultural land resources is expected to increase and stabilize production of food and export crops, thereby increasing farm incomes, spurring growth in the agricultural sector, and enabling the country to more reliably meet the increasing food needs of its growing population. In addition, irrigation should allow for a more diverse set of crops to be grown throughout the year, with significant expansion desired particularly in the production of micronutrient-rich vegetables and fruit. With increasing use of irrigation across the country, Malawians will gain greater access to more food and a more diverse range of foods. The nutritional status of young children and other vulnerable groups should improve as a result. Conceptually, this nutritional argument to build support for expanding investments in irrigation in Malawi seems reasonable; however, there is little empirical evidence from Malawi or elsewhere to confirm whether irrigation improves nutritional status.

Food and nutrition security implications of crop diversification in Malawi’s farm households

Although dramatic increases in maize yields since the implementation of the Farm Income Subsidy Program (FISP)—the major national program that subsidizes fertilizer and improved seed primarily for maize cultivation—have likely enhanced household maize self-sufficiency (Chibwana et al. 2012), Malawian diets remain poorly diversified. Indeed, the contribution of foods other than maize to national per capita dietary energy supply appears to have actually decreased slightly in recent years. Poorly diversified diets characterized by an overreliance on starchy staples are a red flag for malnutrition. Conversely, diets which include a variety of foods are considered important for positive health. Diets which include nutrient-rich legumes and animal-source foods as well as vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables are associated with micronutrient adequacy and reductions in chronic undernutrition (Arimond and Ruel 2004; Thompson and Amoroso 2011).

Introduction to conceptual issues related to agriculture, food security, and nutrition

Smallholder agriculture is the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Its importance for livelihoods cannot be overstated. 94 percent of rural residents and 38 percent of urban residents engage in agriculture to some extent (Jones, Shrinivas, and Bezner-Kerr 2014), the vast majority as smallholder farmers with landholdings of less than one hectare. Smallholder crops are primarily maize—which accounted for nearly 80 percent of smallholder-cultivated land in 2011 —followed by cassava and other food crops (FAO 2008; IFAD 2011). These foods are grown for household consumption and for sale at local and regional markets. As such, the Malawian food supply, especially in rural areas where markets are thin with few buying or selling options, is shaped largely by trends in smallholder food-crop production

Understanding the pathways to improved diets from the production of nutritious and marketable commodities

Value chains and agricultural commercialization are increasingly being promoted as mechanisms for agricultural transformation, inclusive growth, and, more recently, improving food security and diets. Views of commercialization in agricultural development discourse have fluctuated over the years. Initially framed in terms of moving subsistence farmers into cash cropping and specialization, and subsequently criticized for exposing the poor to the high risk of engaging in commodity markets, the discourse shifted over a decade ago to include commercialization in terms of its effects on nutrition (Alderman 1987; Kennedy and Cogill 1987; Dewalt 1993; Peters and Herrera 1994; von Braun 1995). Theoretically, market-oriented production should allow farmers to increase their incomes and purchase more nutritious foods. However, there is very little empirical understanding of the pathways through which such production impacts diets and under what circumstances. What is clear is that there are a variety of constraints posed by commercial farming that can impede positive dietary changes. These include the tendency of men to control income from cash crops, the inherent price instability of cash crops, and the tendency to spend lumpy income (income based on few irregular payments in the year) on non-food items (DeWalt 1993).

Indicators for examining links between agriculture, food security, and nutrition

How can the nutrition impact of agriculture programs be assessed? Depending on context, data may need to be collected on: production practices for food, livestock, and cash crops; post-farm gate value chain and other market-based activities; commodity prices; household food security; women’s empowerment; and diet and nutrition outcomes. While not intended as an exhaustive review, this chapter provides a primer on some of the most commonly-used indicators for research, monitoring, and evaluation of these areas. The following sections discuss the commonly-used indicators for assessing:  diet and nutrition outcomes;  household food security;  gender, household decisionmaking, and empowerment;  agricultural production, productivity, and diversification; and  food markets and prices.

Poverty, food Prices, and dietary choices in Malawi

In this chapter we analyze Malawi’s recent food consumption trends, including per capita calorie and micronutrient-consumption estimates, and reflect on how these pertain to (1) changes in poverty and household income, and (2) relative changes in food prices. In so doing, we extract from a detailed analysis of household food consumption (Verduzco-Gallo, Ecker, and Pauw 2014) and from an assessment of recent poverty trends (Pauw, Beck, and Mussa 2014). Both these studies draw on the two latest rounds of Malawi’s nationally-representative Integrated Household Surveys (IHS2 and IHS3) collected in 2004–2005 and 2010–2011 (NSO 2005; 2012b).

Operational poverty targeting by proxy means tests: Models and policy simulations for Malawi

Introduction: Why aid and democracy?: Why Africa?

Overview [in Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change]

Two steps forward, one step back: The limits of foreign aid on Malawi's democratic consolidation

Malawi

Democratization in Africa: What role for external actors?

Methodology [In Southern African agriculture and climate change]

Democratic trajectories in Africa: Conclusions and policy recommendations

Democratic trajectories in Africa: Unravelling the impact of foreign aid

Southern African agriculture and climate change: a comprehensive analysis

Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis examines the food security threats facing eight of the countries that make up southern Africa — Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — and explores how climate change will increase the efforts needed to achieve sustainable food security throughout the region. Southern Africa’s population is expected to grow at least through mid-century. The region will also see income growth. Both will put increased pressure on the natural resources needed to produce food, and climate change makes the challenges greater. Southern Africa is already experiencing rising temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, and increasing extreme events. Without attention to adaptation, the poor will suffer.

Strategies and priorities for African agriculture: Economywide perspectives from country studies

This book examines the potential of agriculture to contribute to national growth and poverty reduction. It also evaluates the financial costs of accelerating agricultural growth. The analysis is based on ten country case studies that apply similar economywide approaches to linking growth, poverty, and investment. The findings indicate that, in most African countries, improving agriculture’s performance is essential to achieving pro-poor growth. They also point to export agriculture having high growth potential and becoming a prominent part of agricultural strategies. The research shows that broad-based growth will be difficult to achieve without expanding staple-foodcrop production and livestock production, since only they have the scale and linkages to poor households needed to reduce national poverty within a reasonable period of time. Finally, the case studies confirm the need for greater investment in agriculture. However, the efficiency of agricultural investments will have to improve if development targets are to remain attainable.

Malawi

During 2000–06, Malawi’s agricultural sector was one of the worst performing in Sub-Saharan Africa, with its gross domestic product (GDP) declining by an average 0.6 percent per year (World Bank 2010). Given that agriculture constituted more than one-third of Malawi’s economy, its stagnation slowed overall economic growth in the country, despite nonagriculture’s stronger performance. Population growth also outpaced economic growth, causing per capita incomes to fall. By 2006 Malawi and its agricultural sector were clearly in crisis. Poverty remained high and widespread, and malnutrition and food insecurity were worsening (Malawi, NSO 2005; Harrigan 2008).

Towards functional biosafety regulatory frameworks in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Malawi

Breeding an “Amaizing” crop: Improved maize in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

From statutory to private contracts: Emerging institutional arrangements in the smallholder tea sector in Malawi

This case study addresses the issues of institutional change and the need for collective action in a commodity, tea, which requires high fixed investment in processing facilities. In the wake of political and economic changes, the case study illustrates how asset specificity and commodity characteristics facilitate vertical integration as discussed in Chapter 5 and how exogenous changes have influenced institutional arrangements and contract enforcement in the Malawian tea industry. The case study raises such issues in contract farming as enforcement of contracts and compatible incentives when the state is a major player, and it shows the consequences of state failure, an issue that is discussed further in Chapter 20.

Persistent food insecurity from policy failures in Malawi

Even in the era of globalization, several countries in Africa continue to face chronic and persistent food insecurity. Malawi is one such country. Following a weather shock in 2001, Malawi suffered severe food crises during 2001/02 and again during 2003/04. The main causes of these crises were both natural and manmade. Although poor rainfall resulted in low agricultural productivity, inefficient government policies exacerbated the crises. The reduction in per capita food availability due to low production led to a dramatic increase in food prices. The rapid increase in prices, combined with low purchasing power of a large section of the Malawian population, adversely affected household food access. The government’s erroneous food price policies added to the crises, thwarting the efficient functioning of food markets and resulting in starvation-related deaths in some districts. Maize is the dominant food crop in Malawi, and its yield is highly sensitive to weather variations. Several programs and policies have attempted to increase the productivity of maize and help consumers gain better access to food. Yet misguided policies and their inconsistent implementation remain a major impediment to achieving food security for all Malawians. This case study illustrates this proposition with two policy examples. The first example shows that although Malawi’s Starter Pack Program—free distribution of hybrid maize seeds and fertilizers in small packs to smallholder farmers—initially improved food security, premature scaling down of the program to a targeted program during the low-rainfall period of 2001/02 resulted in food crisis. The second example shows how government intervention to subsidize maize prices through parastatal outlets kept maize prices artificially low. This action led to poor incentives for private traders to import food during the periods of food deficit and thereby contributed to the food crisis. Several policy responses can address production and market failures and help in avoiding future food crises. These responses include developing small-scale irrigation systems, increasing smallholder access to modern inputs, and improving market infrastructure and trade. Social safety nets to smooth consumption shocks and provide income opportunities during crisis periods are also important. Consistent and well-informed policies can help reduce the impact of future food crises. The challenge to Malawian policy makers is to design, sequence, and implement such policies and programs. Your assignment is to develop a set of policy recommendations that will prevent future food crises in Malawi.

HIV/AIDS, Nutrition, and Food Security: Looking to Future Challenges

Rollout of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy under the aegis of the WHO’s “3 by 5” initiative, with funding from numerous donors via the Global Fund for TB, HIV/ AIDS, and malaria, the U.S. PEPFAR and U.K. DFID, gives cause for hope for all those millions of people in Africa who are living with HIV/AIDS. Midway through 2005 nobody seriously believed that the target of 3 million people on treatment by year end would be achieved. However, it was a necessary goal at that stage. But for those concerned with meeting the challenge of HIV/AIDS impacts, increased antiretroviral therapy (ART) availability has to be seen for what it is: an opportunity to take a breath in the struggle against the impact of AIDS and think, and think hard, about what we do next.

AIDS and Watersheds: Understanding and Assessing Biostructural Interventions

Over the past 15 years, evidence has accumulated of how HIV/AIDS impacts rural people who depend for their food and livelihood on agriculture and the management of natural resources. Evidence is also available, though less extensive, of how changes in the rural environment influence the dynamics of HIV/AIDS. It is striking, however, how little this understanding has yet to contribute to the methods used in the struggle with HIV/AIDS. The “expanded response” that UNAIDS is spearheading to meet the targets set by the UN General Assembly Session on HIV/AIDS in 2001 includes no reference to agricultural or natural resource–based measures for prevention, treatment, and care (Stover et al. 2002). This is hardly surprising because there is as yet little documented evidence of their effectiveness in HIV/AIDS control terms or feasibility on a wide scale. Much less is it clear how such efforts might be financed. Across the sectoral divide, agricultural and natural resource management policies and programs are aimed at enhancing food security, improving nutrition, and expanding livelihood opportunities. However, the decisionmakers responsible for the most part have a very limited understanding of how these may be affecting HIV/AIDS risks, positively or negatively, and how these inadvertent effects can be optimized. Few have a clear understanding of how HIV/ AIDS is affecting or will in the future affect attainment of the objectives they now pursue and what adjustments will be necessary to keep these in sight.

Mainstreaming HIV and AIDS into Livelihoods and Food Security Programs: The Experience of CARE Malawi

It is now well recognized that household food insecurity in Southern Africa can be properly understood and addressed only if HIV/AIDS is factored into the analysis. Analysis of linkages between food security and HIV/AIDS show that the relationships work in both directions and are systemic, affecting all aspects of livelihoods (Haddad and Gillespie 2001). Effective analysis and action to influence the causes and outcomes of HIV/AIDS requires a contextual understanding of livelihoods (SADC FANR Vulnerability Assessment Committee 2003).

Measuring the Impact of Targeted Food Assistance on HIV/AIDS-Related Beneficiary Groups: Monitoring and Evaluation Indicators

In October 2005, the Consortium for the Southern Africa Food Security Emergency (C-SAFE) transitioned to its final year of a regional “developmental relief ” program. Yet, members continued to collaborate on this specific learning activity given their common objectives of improving monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for HIV/AIDS-related beneficiary groups. C-SAFE’s strategic objectives included (1) improving and maintaining nutritional status, (2) protecting productive assets, and (3) improving community resilience to food security shocks.

An Enduring or Dying Peasantry? Interactive Impact of Famine and HIV/AIDS in Rural Malawi

This chapter concentrates on the material conditions and attitudinal perspectives of local villagers, drawing primarily on transcripts of key informant interviews and focus group discussions from three villages to examine the interactions between HIV/AIDS and famine in rural Malawi. Our investigations were part of a CARE International/RENEWAL study carried out between December 2003 and March 2004 in Lilongwe rural district, Central Region.1 The chapter focuses on the response of Malawian peasant farmers to the combined threats of famine and HIV/AIDS and quotes extensively from our interviews and discussions in order to convey how rural peasant farmers perceive the challenges they face. The first section provides background on rural livelihoods in Malawi and various historical influences shaping the peasantry over time, followed by a consideration of changing famine coping strategies.

Stigma When There Is No Other Option: Understanding How Poverty Fuels Discrimination toward People Living with HIV in Zambia

Based on qualitative fieldwork in urban and rural Zambia (see Bond et al. 2003), this chapter aims to demonstrate that HIV-related stigma and discrimination are fueled by the practicalities of limited resources and narrow options and, in this wider context of poverty and household fatigue, that the poor, women, orphans, and rural dwellers are particularly vulnerable to HIV-related stigma and discrimination. It is apparent that a significant proportion of discriminatory actions are caused by the fact that HIV and AIDS can be so very hard to manage in the context of poverty. Significant differences between the urban and rural sites that emerged in our material, with overall less stigma manifested in the urban site and more pronounced stigma in the rural site, suggest that it is possible to alleviate household stress and reduce this type of stigma and discrimination by providing services and support.

Multisectoral HIV/AIDS Approaches in Africa: How Are They Evolving?

The response to HIV/AIDS in Africa has evolved considerably since the first cases were reported on the continent in the early 1980s. After the initial medical and public health responses through the mid-1990s, there was an enormous expansion in the scope of the strategic approaches and level of political and financial commitment to fight the disease. In the absence of a vaccine or cure, the global response expanded far beyond the traditional confines of the health sector. Perceiving strong links between AIDS and the greater development processes, national and international organs reached out to a wide array of stakeholders to implement a broad multisectoral agenda. This expansion in vision was accompanied by a corresponding development of institutional structures and coordination mechanisms. Efforts to extend, harmonize, and improve the management of the multisectoral response are very much continuing today.

HIV/AIDS and the Agricultural Sector in Eastern and Southern Africa: Anticipating the Consequences

This chapter is intended to respond to the need to better understand the implications of the AIDS pandemic for the agricultural sectors in the hardest-hit countries of eastern and southern Africa. The six countries of the world with estimated HIV prevalence rates exceeding 20 percent1 are all in southern Africa: Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe (UN Census Bureau 2003). Five other countries, all in southern and eastern Africa (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique), have HIV prevalence rates between 10 and 20 percent. For shorthand, we hereafter refer to these countries as the “hardest hit” countries.

The Ecology of Poverty: Nutrition, Parasites, and Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS continues to spread throughout the developing world, in transition countries, and among poor and marginalized populations in industrialized countries. In its third decade, and even with increased resources, global AIDS policy is still failing to stem the epidemic. HIV prevention fails because it ignores the fundamental causes of the epidemic, it is unscientific, and it attempts to intervene at the last minute with programs limited to behavior change.

AIDS, Poverty, and Hunger: An Overview

The AIDS epidemic is a global crisis with impacts that will be felt for decades to come. More than 28 million people have died since the first case was reported in 1981. In 2005, AIDS killed 2.8 million people, and an estimated 4.1 million became infected, bringing to 38.6 million the number of people living with the virus around the world; 24.5 million of these people live in Sub-Saharan Africa (where in some countries one in three adults are infected) and 8.3 million live in Asia (UNAIDS 2006).

HIV/AIDS, Household Income, and Consumption Dynamics in Malawi

A survey of recent writings on the interactions between the AIDS epidemic and livelihoods in Africa leaves one with the impression that development practitioners, academics, and even casual observers of developments in Africa are hell-bent on pinning most of Africa’s economic stagnation on the AIDS epidemic. This is all the more troubling because, although in the past 15 years economists have attempted to systematically link AIDS and poverty and to test the strength of those linkages, the relationships among livelihoods, poverty, and the AIDS epidemic remains so complex that we still know little about the actual contribution of AIDS in explaining observed cases of persistent poverty and divergent economic fortunes in Africa. For instance, a number of macro-level forecasts, from the pioneering studies (Ainsworth and Over 1992; Cuddington 1993; Cuddington and Hancock 1994) to more recent ones (e.g., Bloom and Mahal 1997; Greener, Jefferis, and Siphambe 2000; Arndt and Lewis 2001; Haacker 2002; Crafts and Haacker 2003) have generated an almost universal consensus that the AIDS epidemic will have an immense impact on the macroeconomies of hard-hit countries, significantly slowing economic growth and worsening poverty and income distribution (also see summaries in UNFPA 2002; UNAIDS 2002). Yet recent experience seems to suggest that because the HIV population is still a relatively small proportion of the total population, even in hard-hit countries, macro-level economic impacts of AIDS are likely to be barely visible in national statistics (Desbarats 2002).

Labor Market and Wage Impacts of HIV/AIDS in Rural Malawi

There is a limited but growing literature on direct impacts of HIV/AIDS morbidity and mortality on the livelihoods of poor rural people. Less is known, however, about indirect impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the livelihoods of rural communities, allowing for market interactions between households. These are difficult to study, but unskilled wages and food prices are critically important to the welfare of poor people, whether directly affected by HIV/AIDS or not: If the HIV/AIDS epidemic depresses labor demands more than it contracts labor supply, this could lower wage rates in affected communities, damaging the livelihoods of poor households. Promotion of laborsaving enterprises and technologies under such circumstances could have disastrous consequences for the healthy poor.

Scaling up Multisectoral Approaches to Combating HIV and AIDS

The AIDS pandemic is a global crisis with impacts that will be felt for decades to come, demanding massive responses at many levels. Such responses need to continue to be grounded in the three core pillars of prevention, care and treatment, and mitigation. But these responses need to be much larger in scale, far more broadly based, and better connected so as to better match the scale, breadth, and interconnectedness of the pandemic’s causes and impacts.

AIDS, poverty, and hunger: Challenges and responses

More than a quarter-century after HIV was identified, the long-wave, intergenerational nature of AIDS epidemics is becoming starkly evident. We may have passed the peak of the infection wave in many countries, but the multiple impact waves continue to gather momentum. Advances are indeed being made in prevention, treatment, care, and support. Yet, in 2006 in many of the hardest-hit countries, fewer than one in eight people living with HIV have sustained access to lifesaving drugs. At the same time, we are learning more about the intertwining of HIV and AIDS with poverty, nutrition, and agriculture. It is now clear that, if the Millennium Development Goals on hunger and AIDS are to be met, especially in eastern and southern Africa, we need to continue to research these dynamics and proactively address them through better, AIDS-responsive food policy and programming. Against this backdrop, the International Food Policy Research Institute convened the International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action in Durban, South Africa, April 14-16, 2005. ... As highlights from the conference, the chapters in this book amply illustrate the diversity of activity and the imperative for interdisciplinary work in this new field. Economists, nutritionists, anthropologists, health specialists, and other development professionals have approached the issue from different angles, often using innovative methods, to generate important new findings.

The future of smallholder agriculture in Eastern Africa: the roles of states, markets, and civil society

This book is one of the principal outputs of the IFPRI Eastern Africa Food Policy Network. The Network, known then as the IFPRI 2020 Vision Network for Eastern Africa, was launched in 1998, in response to requests by several eastern African countries for assistance in generating policy-relevant information. Covering Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, the Network engages in a range of activities in policy research, capacity strengthening, and outreach (policy communication), with a view to contributing to efforts to reduce poverty, improve food and nutrition security, increase agricultural productivity, and promote sustainable use of natural resources in the region. Beginning in 2000, the Network supported several research projects under its Competitive Grants Program. A total of 30 projects were supported across all 6 Network countries. This book summarizes the outputs of 11 of the best projects.

Correlates of poverty measures in Malawi: an application of poverty mapping at the subdistrict scale

Malawi: an atlas of social statistics

This atlas combines information and analyses of the 1998 Population and Housing Census and the 1997-98 Integrated Household Survey, together with some sectorally specific data, to provide policy makers, students, educators and interested individuals with a better and more up-to-date understanding of the spatial distribution of the characteristics and living conditions of the people of Malawi. Although a broad range of social statistics are considered in the atlas, the over-riding focus is on poverty. The spatial patterns seen in the atlas will provide the reader with insights regarding key geographic facors associated with poverty, thereby assisting in the development and in the geographic targeting of programs designed to reduce it." from Back Cover.

Agricultural markets in Benin and Malawi: operation and performance of traders

Conclusions for agricultural commercialization policy

Agricultural commercialization, economic development, and nutrition are linked with one another. Policies influence the strength and direction of these linkages and welfare outcomes. Ignoring the linkages may be to the disadvantage of the nutritional welfare of the poor; opportunities to improve the well-being of the poor may be lost. In this concluding chapter, we attempt to draw some generalized lessons from the receding chapters.

Agricultural processing enterprises: Development potentials and links to the smallholder

In countries where farming and fishing are major productive activities, processing enterprises can have a strategic developmental role. Infrastructural, institutional, and contractural issues arise around them. Whereas consumption and nutrition effects of agricultural commercialiazation linked to specific processing enterprises are traced in some of the detailed studies in Part V (for example, export vegetables, chapter 12; spices plantation, chapter 14; dairy, chapter 15; sugarcane factories, chapter 13 and 16), this chapter gives an overview of the broader experiences, potentials and problems of agricultural processing enterprises.

Tobacco cultivation, food production, and nutrition among smallholders in Malawi

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a per capita income of about US$170 (World Bank 1990). Although Malawi has an enviable record in achieving national food self-sufficiency, it has achieved that at a very low level of the supply-demand balance; the aggregate picture masks widespread food insecurity at the household level. National statistics indicate that over half of the children under five years of age suffer from malnutrition and almost one in five dies before reaching the age of five. The causes of this grim situation are low incomes, chronic and seasonal food shortages, inadequate diet (especially for weaning infants and children between one and two years of age), and high morbidity rates. To date, policy reforms have included restructuring the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC), which is the government marketing agency, and agricultural pricing policies. Smallholder response to higher producer prices has increased sales to ADMARC, but this seems to indicate switches among crops rather than an aggregate increase in output (Lele 1989b). This study was conducted in 1986-87 to assess the impact of the commercialization of maize and tobacco in an area in southern Malawi

Contract farming and commercialization of agriculture in developing countries

The distributional benefits of commercialization of agriculture, access to commercialization opportunities, and sharing of commercialization risks are functions of institutional arrangements. Obviously, the indirect food security and nutritional effects are, thereby, partly a function of such institutional arrangements. This chapter explores the relevance to food security of one form of contractual relationship in agriculture: formal contracts between producers and buyers (generally processors or exporters), a production and marketing system known as contract farming. The chapter does not refer to the extensive literature on informal contractual relations, such as sharecropping, or on traditional systems of contract farming, such as the extensive "strange farmer" system in West Africa's groundnut sector. The chapter draws generalizations and conclusion from studies done by the author and by other researchers. The latter include two research networks initiated by the author. One network surveyed the experience with contract farming in several East and Southern African countries (Eastern Africa Economic Review 1989); the second examined the experience in Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines (Glover and Lim, forthcoming).

Agricultural commercialization, economic development, and nutrition

Why should there be a book about the commercialization of subsistence agriculture, economic development, and nutrition? There are two compelling reasons. First, concerns and suspicions about adverse effects on the poor of commercialization of subsistence agriculture persist and influence policy of developing countries and of donor agencies. Second, in rural areas of low-income countries, nutritional welfare is determined by many complex factors whose relationships to agricultural commercialization and economic development need to be traced in order to design optimal rural growth policies that benefit the poor. In view of the challenges of rapid urbanization and the chances of commercialization, the question is not if subsistence agriculture should be overcome, but how. Thus, the purpose of this book is to clarify concepts, add comprehensive factual information, and assist policy and program analysts in identifying potentials and risks of promoting commercialization of agriculture for poverty alleviation.

Consumption effects of commercialization of agriculture

The commercialization of agricultur has, in many diverse circumstances, led both to an increase in household income and to changes in the way household resources are organized to earn that income, Have these changes meant that food intakes are more nutritions and that health and sanitation conditions are improved? This chapter addresses three central questions: (1) to what extent are increments in income spent on nonfood items, in particular, health-related items; (2) to what extent are increments in income spent on food, and (controlling income) dows the switch to commercial production alter the marginal propensities to spend on food; and (3) to what extent do increments in food expenditures lead to greater calorie intakes, both at the household level and at the individual preschooler level?

Health and nutrition effects of commercialization of agriculture

One of the most contentious issues in the cash crop/food crop debate revolves around the impact of commercialization of agriculture on the health and nutritional status of women and children/ This chaper examines the effects of commercialization of agriculture on preschoolers' health nad nutritional status. The chapter also assesses the effects on women along the lines of the conceptual ramework described in chapter 2.

Conceptual framework

In this chapter, the basic theoretical relationships and definitional issues related to the commercialization of agriculture and described. Simply speaking, cash crops can be defined as crops for sale. The listing of typical agricultural processing enterprises in chapter 9 gives a rough overview of cash crops (also, see von Braun and Kennedy 1986). Yet, commercialization of agriculture as a process and a characteristic of agricultural change is more than whether or not a cash crop is present to a certain extent in a production system. Commercialization of subsistence agriculture and take many different forms.

Commercialization of agriculture and food security: Development strategy and trade policy issues

The choice between subsistence food crops, on the one hand, and cash crops, especially nonfood cash crops predominantly meant for exports, on the other hand, is a subject of considerable debate among policy makers as well as development specialists. The debate raises issues not only at the level of farming households but also at the level of national and international policies, including macroeconomic policies such as trade and exchange rate policies. This chapter reviews and focuses on those aspects of principal relevance in the context of an overall agrcultural development strategy and food security.

Production, employment, and income effects of commercialization of agriculture

The three chapters in Part III report synthesis is findings from the microlevel IFPRI research in The Gambia, Guatemala, Kenya, the Philippines, and Rwanda, as well as from the other case studies presented in Part V. Any attempt to synthesize and generalize on the basis of the detailed case studies runs the risk of excessively extrapolating from special circumstances and of losing insights gained from these case studies, whose strengths are the detailed assessments of the commercialization-production-income-consumption-nutrition chain and the important feedbacks from these elements. This chapter, on the first elements of the commercialization chain, is therefore to be seen in the context of the following two chapters, and all the three synthesis chapters together are to be seen in the context of the rich insights from the individual studies discussed later.

Introduction and overview [in Agricultural commercialization, economic development, and nutrition]

Why should there be a book about the commercialization of subsistence agriculture, economic development, and nutrition? There are two compelling resasons. First, concerns and suspicions about adverse effects on the poor of commercialization of subsistence agriculture persist and influence policy of developing countries and of donor agencies. Second, in rural areas of low-income countries, nutritional welfare is determined by many complex factors whose relationships to agricultural commercialization and economic development need to be traced in order to design optimal rural growth policies that benefit the poor.

Agricultural policy reforms and regional market integration in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

Economic growth in developing countries has generally slowed since the early 1980s. In many countries in Sub-saharan Africa, per capita income has even declined. External developments have had an adverse effect, as the slowdown in world economic activity and deteriorating terms of trade for most agricultural commodities have posed severe difficultues for many developing countries. More important, however, inappropriate domestic policies have been increasingly recognized as a major culprit. This has led to the adoption of various programs of macroeconomic and sectoral policy reforms, generally aimed at achieving macroeconomic stability and a satisfactory rate of economic growth. Among southern African countries, there has also been keen interest in promoting regional market integration.