Journal Articles

Maize yield responsiveness and profitability of fertilizer: New survey evidence from six African countries

Enhancing maize productivity growth is pivotal for revolutionizing the agrifood system in Africa, with inorganic fertilizer serving as a fundamental input for catalyzing this progress. However, concerns are mounting about the low and decreasing yield response and profitability of inorganic fertilizer use, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study aims to refine yield response and profitability models by incorporating recent data from nationally representative and panel datasets spanning six countries. Most countries exhibited low nitrogen yield responsiveness (4–7 kg), while Ghana and Uganda showed higher responsiveness (15–20 kg) per additional 1 kg of nitrogen. Analysis of fertilizer-to-maize price ratios from 2010 to 2023 showed a downward trend, with spikes in 2022 in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania. Overall, except for those years, the data suggest a trend of increasingly favorable price incentives for fertilizer use. Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda experienced declines in the fertilizer-to-maize price ratio. Increasing inorganic fertilizer use would be profitable in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda at current market prices, but not in Malawi or Tanzania. Subsidies in Malawi and Tanzania have boosted profitability, but these may not be necessary in Ghana, Nigeria, or Uganda, which already have favorable price incentives; Malawi could benefit by substantially reducing its 80 percent subsidy while maintaining decent price incentives and farm profits. The paper proposes policy options based on factors influencing yield responsiveness and potential improvements drawn from new modeling and synthesis of the literature.

Rural underemployment and urbanisation: Insights from a 9-year panel from Malawi

Rural labour markets in Africa are frequently characterised by underemployment, with farmers unable to fully deploy throughout the year one of their most important assets—their labour. Using a nine-year panel data set on 1,407 working-age adults from rural Malawi, we document changes in rural underemployment over this period and how they are associated with urbanisation. Nearby urban growth is linked to increased hours worked in casual labour (ganyu) and in non-agricultural sectors, at the expense of work on the household farm. Improved urban access is also associated with a small increase in wage labour and, at the intensive margin, with hours supplied in household enterprises. We draw lessons from these results for policies, investments and interventions to leverage urban growth for rural development.

Do youth work in agriculture? Short-term dynamics of on-farm rural youth employment in Tanzania and Malawi

An approach for assessing whether agricultural projects help smallholders transition to better livelihood strategies: A Malawian case study

Agricultural projects typically aim to promote the uptake of project components amongst targeted small farm populations to improve their farm productivity and welfare. While this approach can be an important first step towards improving smallholder livelihoods, it ignores alternative and often superior livelihood options that might arise within the rural transformation process, particularly in commercial agriculture and the rural nonfarm economy. We argue that the design of smallholder projects implemented within regions already undergoing a dynamic transformation and/or projects which have significant value chain components, should be broadened to assist smallholders in making successful transitions to their best livelihood options. For such projects, monitoring and evaluation activities should track livelihood transitions as well as the usual assessments of productivity and welfare outcomes. To help operationalize such an approach, we propose a typology of smallholder livelihood strategies that can track transitions over time and illustrate its use with data from the Sustainable Agricultural Production Program (SAPP), an agricultural value chain project in Malawi. Using available household panel data and quasi-experimental econometric approaches, we find that the project helped smallholders transition out of subsistence farming to market-oriented farming and helped already existing market-oriented farmers remain as such. Even though the project did not have any specific components designed to promote off-farm incomes, nevertheless, it facilitated many farm household transitions to off-farm diversified livelihoods, possibly due to spillover benefits generated within the local nonfarm economy. All SAPP facilitated transitions led to increases in household incomes. We conclude with some lessons for designing, monitoring, and the evaluation of future agricultural projects.

Understanding modifiable caregiver factors contributing to child development among young children in rural Malawi

This study examined modifiable caregiver factors influencing child development in Malawi using baseline data from 1,021 mothers and their children <2 years of age participating in a cluster-randomized controlled trial implemented in rural Malawi (2022–2025). We fit an evidence-based theoretical model using structural equation modelling examining four caregiver factors: (1) diet diversity (sum of food groups consumed in the past 24 h), (2) empowerment (assessed using the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index), (3) mental health (assessed using the Self-Reported Questionnaire, SRQ-20), and (4) stimulation (number of stimulation activities the mother engaged in the past 3 days). Child development was assessed using the Malawi Development Assessment Tool (norm-referenced aggregate Z-score). The model controlled for child, caregiver, and household socioeconomic characteristics. Results showed that caregiver dietary diversity was directly associated with higher child development scores (standardized coefficient 0.091 [95% CI 0.027, 0.153]) and lower SRQ-20 scores −0.058 (−0.111, −0.006). Empowerment was directly associated with higher child development scores (0.071 [0.007, 0.133]), higher stimulation score (0.074 [0.013, 0.140]), higher dietary diversity (0.085 [0.016, 0.145]), and lower SRQ-20 scores (−0.068 [−0.137, −0.002]). Further, higher empowerment was indirectly associated with improved child development through enhancement of caregiver dietary diversity, with an indirect effect of 0.008 (0.002, 0.018). These findings highlight the important role that caregiver diet and empowerment play in directly influencing child development and other aspects of caregiver well-being. Interventions aimed at enhancing child development should consider these factors as potential targets to improve outcomes for children and caregivers.

Bottom-up approaches and decentralized extension structures for improving access to and quality of extension services and technology adoption: Multi-level analysis from Malawi

This paper looks at village agriculture committees, model villages, and stakeholder panels at various levels as participatory and decentralized structures for improving demand articulation and accountability in agricultural extension service provision in Malawi. It uses various datasets including nationally representative household and community surveys, a survey of service providers, a survey of representatives from the various structures, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. It employs various estimation methods including matching techniques, matching plus regression adjustments, and an instrumental variables approach. Results show diverse experiences and functionality of these structures. Contrary to earlier reports, most of these structures are active, except for district stakeholder panels (DSPs), of which only about a quarter are active. Similarly, most of them provide a platform for discussion and feedback on service providers and the quality of their advice, except for DSPs. However, most structures were given poor ratings in terms of their responsiveness to the concerns and issues raised. Household participation in village development or agriculture committees is strongly associated with better household outcome indicators. These village committees, if they are active and responsive to farmers’ expressed concerns and needs, can contribute to better community-level outcomes. Results show that these village-level structures matter and that strengthening them is key to addressing their long-term functionality. On the other hand, a model village concept that focuses on an integrated approach to solving communities’ challenges is not associated with improved community outcome indicators; therefore, its implementation should be reviewed and improved to contribute to development outcomes.

Monitoring the cost and affordability of a healthy diet within Countries: Building systems in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Viet Nam

Background
Governments around the world collect food price data on a frequent basis, often monthly, for the purpose of monitoring inflation. These routine economic data can be used with a nutrition-sensitive lens for understanding economic access to a healthy diet. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has adopted the cost and affordability of a healthy diet (CoAHD) for annual tracking alongside other food security indicators. This indicator is relevant in many countries for informed decision-making and accountability toward food systems summit pathways. National governments may wish to include this indicator in their own monitoring systems, using existing subnational price and income data.
Objectives
We describe emerging systems in several countries for monitoring CoAHD and analytical tools that facilitate the calculation of CoAHD. We discuss reasons why the indicator may differ when calculated using subnational data compared with the global monitoring system and how to interpret differences.
Methods
Between June 2016 and February 2024, 19 workshops were held in 7 countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Viet Nam), where stakeholder discussions covered sources of food price data, institutions involved, policy uses, and direct training in calculation of CoAHD. Food price data collected by national organizations were used to calculate CoAHD in partnership with government agencies.
Results
Calculating CoAHD using subnational data uses the same methods across settings, but the mechanisms for monitoring and dissemination are different in each country, illustrating heterogeneity in how the metric can most effectively be incorporated within existing structures. Results from national and global monitoring systems have expected differences based on data sources, healthy diet standards, and affordability standards.
Conclusions
CoAHD can be calculated with existing data and resources, facilitated by new software tools and user tutorials. In the future, it can be further streamlined, leveraging technical assistance from global institutions and aligning national and global monitoring systems.

A new approach to monitoring farmer prices: Method and an application to Malawi

This paper proposes a new approach to monitoring farmer prices in low-income developing countries. This crowdsourcing approach involves broadcasting radio jingles inviting farmers to report the prices and locations at which they sold their crops to a toll-free call centre, with weekly prizes to incentivize reporting. An application to Malawi illustrates the feasibility of this approach in a setting where internet connectivity is limited but mobile phone coverage is reasonable. The majority of farmers reporting sold to assemblers or small traders and received substantially less than official minimum farm gate prices. Non-parametric analysis shows that farmer prices vary according to bargaining power and sales volume but not by distance to the point of sale. These findings may be explained by the fragmented and monopsonistic nature of food markets in Malawi, and farmers’ mode of transport to the point of sale.

Revisiting development strategy under climate uncertainty: Case study of Malawi

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of agriculture-led versus non-agriculture-led development strategies under climate-induced economic uncertainty. Utilizing Malawi as a case study, we introduce the application of Stochastic Dominance (SD) analysis, a tool from decision analysis theory, and compare the two strategies in the context of weather/climate-associated economic uncertainty. Our findings suggest that an agriculture-led development strategy consistently surpasses its non-agriculture-led antagonist in poverty and undernourishment outcomes across almost all possible weather/climate scenarios. This underscores that, despite increasing exposure of the entire economy to weather/climate uncertainty, agriculture-led development remains the optimal strategy for Malawi to reduce poverty and undernourishment. The study also endorses the broader use of SD analysis in policy planning studies, promoting its potential to integrate risk and uncertainty into policymaking.

The importance and determinants of purchases in rural food consumption in Africa: implications for food security strategies

We analyze rural households’ purchases of food (cereals and non-cereals) in Sub-Saharan Africa using nationally representative data with 65,000 observations covering 7 countries over a decade. We distinguish between three strata of countries: lower stratum in income and urbanization, middle stratum, and upper stratum. The paper breaks ground by the breadth and time length of the sample. We find that purchases form the majority of rural food consumption whether in favorable or unfavorable agroecological zones and over country and income strata and for most food products. Rural nonfarm employment (as a cash source) plays an important role in household food purchases across all study countries and food products. Policy implications include the importance of food purchase markets and supply chains to and in rural areas as well as nonfarm employment.

Impact evaluation of a maternal and child cash transfer intervention, integrated with nutrition, early childhood development, and agriculture messaging (MAZIKO-IE): A study protocol for a cluster-randomised controlled trial

Children in Malawi face high rates of malnutrition and are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential. Community-based childcare centres (CBCCs) can be cost-effective platforms for scaling-up early childhood development (ECD) and nutrition social behaviour change (SBC) interventions. However, evidence also suggests potential synergies from coupling nutrition SBC with cash transfers (CT), given that rural households in Malawi face high levels of poverty and recurring extreme lean season food-security shocks. The Maziko trial is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of using CBCCs and parenting care groups as platforms to improve maternal diets and child nutrition and development by providing nutrition-sensitive SBC and CT intervention packages in communities already receiving a standard of care Government SBC program.

Does bilateral trade in cereals within SADC reflect virtual trade in water between countries with different water endowments?

This paper examines intraregional bilateral trade in virtual water embedded in cereal flows between the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) states. A gravity model is employed to examine whether annual bilateral trade depends on differences in water endowments, but also includes socio-economic and political determinants that affect trade. There is evidence that the abundance of water resources in a country influences trade for a product that is water dependent. Thus, the adverse effect of water scarcity in a country may be ameliorated by encouraging exports of water-intensive cereal crops where water is in abundance and imported where water is scarce.

Nonclassical measurement error and farmers’ response to information treatment

This paper reports on a randomized experiment conducted among Malawian agricultural households to study nonclassical measurement error (NCME) in self-reported plot area, and farmers' responses to new information — the objective plot area measure — subsequently provided to them. Farmers' pre-treatment self-reported plot areas exhibit considerable NCME. Most of the measurement error follows a regression-to-mean pattern with respect to plot area, and another 18 percent arises from asymmetric rounding to half acre increments. Randomized provision of GPS-based measures of true plot area generates four important findings. First, most treated farmers’ self-reports exhibit no reduction in NCME after the provision of true plot area measures. Second, farmers update asymmetrically in response to information, with upward corrections being far more common than downward ones even though most plot sizes were initially overestimated. Third, the magnitude of updating varies by true plot area, as well as the magnitude and direction of initial NCME. Fourth, the information treatment affects self-reported information about non-land inputs such as fertilizer and labor, indicating that the effects of measurement error and updating spillover across variables. NCME clearly carries implications for survey data collection methods, econometric inference, and the design of information-based interventions. It might also reflect behavioral anomalies that may matter for farm management practices, input allocation, agricultural productivity, and the design of effective interventions.

The effects of household income composition on food consumption in Malawi

This analysis uses panel data methods to assess how food consumption and dietary diversity are affected by changes in household income composition, diversity, and liquidity in rural Malawi. Fixed-effects model estimates reveal several results. First, food consumption and dietary diversity increase with overall income, but at a decreasing rate. Second, while no relationship is found between changes in income per capita of different sources (composition effects), and food consumption per capita, there is a differentiated impact on calorie intake changes and dietary diversity outcomes. Third, overall, there is no statistically significant effect of income diversity on changes in food consumption, but a positive association is found with dietary diversity. As such, income diversity driven by crop diversification leads to greater consumption of calories from roots, pulses, and fruits; and a drop in balanced diets, while income diversification away from agriculture yields greater dietary diversity. Finally, household liquidity, incentivized by off-farm diversification through wage labor market participation and selfemployment, promotes dietary diversity via higher consumption of calories from non-staple foods, notably those dependent on market acquisitions, such as animalbased proteins, vegetables, and fruits. These results are corroborated with those from the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Model. There are several policy and programmatic implications. First, income composition, diversity and liquidity are important dimensions to consider when focusing beyond household food security. Second, efforts to promote and sustain income growth are critical for food consumption growth and dietary diversity but increases in income alone are not enough. Policies and investments that ensure a diversified portfolio of economic activities are likely to result in better consumption and dietary diversity outcomes. Promoting crop diversification at the farm level coupled with nutrition sensitive programming, including extension and crop support programs is critical to increase and sustain consumption and better dietary quality. Third, as balanced diets in the Malawian context require a combination of staple foods sourced through crop and livestock home production, including goats, poultry and small domestically raised animals and protein-rich foods typically purchased in the market, as well as a degree of liquidity achieved through increased generation of cash income. Finally, programmatic efforts are needed to reduce gender gaps in access to resources, strengthening nutrition education more broadly, and ensure availability of balanced diets in school feeding programs potentially linked through local procurement.

Women's empowerment, production choices, and crop diversity in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania: A secondary analysis of cross-sectional data

Background: Bolstering farm-level crop diversity is one strategy to strengthen food system resilience and achieve global food security. Women who live in rural areas play an essential role in food production; therefore, we aimed to assess the associations between women's empowerment and crop diversity. Methods: In this secondary analysis of cross-sectional data, we used data from four cluster-randomised controlled trials done in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania. We assessed women's empowerment using indicators from the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index. Farm-level crop diversity measures were the number of food crops grown, number of food groups grown, and if nutrient-dense crops were grown. We used a two-stage modelling approach. First, we analysed covariate-adjusted country-specific associations between women's empowerment and crop diversity indicators using multivariable generalised linear models. Second, we pooled country-specific associations using random-effects models. Findings: The final analytic sample included 1735 women from Burkina Faso, 4450 women from India, 547 women from Malawi, and 574 women from Tanzania. Across all countries, compared with households in which women provided input into fewer productive decisions, households of women with greater input into productive decisions produced more food crops (mean difference 0·36 [95% CI 0·16–0·55]), a higher number of food groups (mean difference 0·16 [0·06–0·25]), and more nutrient-dense crops (percentage point difference 3 [95% CI 3–4]). Across all countries, each additional community group a woman actively participated in was associated with cultivating a higher number of food crops (mean difference 0·20 [0·04–0·35]) and a higher number of food groups (mean difference 0·11 [0·03–0·18]), but not more nutrient-dense crops. In pooled associations from Burkina Faso and India, asset ownership was associated with cultivating a higher number of food crops (mean difference 0·08 [0·04–0·12]) and a higher number of food groups (mean difference 0·05 [0·04–0·07]), but not more nutrient-dense crops. Interpretation: Greater women's empowerment was associated with higher farm-level crop diversity among low-income agricultural households, suggesting that it could help enhance efforts to strengthen food system resilience.

Targeting hunger or votes? The political economy of humanitarian transfers in Malawi

Do electoral considerations play a role in the targeting of humanitarian transfers? We analyze the targeting of direct cash and food transfers distributed in Malawi in response to an exceptionally poor harvest following a late and erratic rainy season of 2015/16. Combining household survey data on transfers with a remotely sensed measure of drought and with the results of the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections, we show that transfers were disproportionately targeted at marginal constituencies. Rather than distributing the transfers based solely on need or mobilizing its tribal base, the government attempted to persuade swing voters to support its candidates in the next elections. We find no evidence that this strategy was successful at increasing the vote of ruling party candidates in subsequent elections.

Farmer advisory systems and pesticide use in legume-based systems in West Africa

Despite the adverse effects of pesticides on the environment and human health, they are a key ingredient in boosting agricultural productivity as a way of meeting global food demand. While global levels of pesticides are towering in high-income countries, pesticide use in many parts of Africa remains low, with significant impacts on agricultural productivity and food production. We use a rich longitudinal dataset to examine the relationship between farmer advisory systems and pesticide use in legume-based production systems in Ghana, Mali, and Nigeria. We find that farmers who are advised by private extension systems are approximately 8 % more likely to use pesticides at an extensive level. They also use pesticides more intensively (41 %). On the other hand, farmers advised by public extension systems are about 5 % more likely to extensively use pesticides. These farmers are observed to reduce the intensive use of pesticides by about 14 %. Furthermore, we also show that farmers advised by joint private-public extension systems are about 4 % more likely to use pesticides as well as reduce their intensity of use by approximately 11 %. At the various country levels, there exists significant heterogeneity in the relationship between advisory systems and pesticide use, suggesting that context matters. Of course, the pesticide regulatory systems and the institutional environments in these countries vary greatly. Given these findings, our study offers key entry and leveraging points for increasing pesticide use at levels that limit their environmental and human effects but may ascertain increased agricultural productivity and food production.

Micro insights on the pathways to agricultural transformation: Comparative evidence from Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

Most studies of agricultural transformation document the impact of agricultural income growth on macroeconomic indicators of development. Much less is known about the micro-scale changes within the farming sector that signal a transformation precipitated by agricultural income growth. This study provides a comparative analysis of the patterns of micro-level changes that occur among small-holder farmers in Uganda and Malawi in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia (SEA). Our analysis provides several important insights on agricultural transformation in these two regions. First, agricultural income in all examined countries is vulnerable to changes in precipitation and temperature, an effect that is nonlinear and asymmetric. SSA countries are more vulnerable to these weather changes. Second, exogenous increases in agricultural income in previous years improve non-farm income and trigger a change in labor allocation within the rural sector in SEA. However, this is the opposite in SSA where the increase in agricultural income reduces non-farm income, indicating a substitution effect between farm and non-farm sectors. These findings reveal clear agricultural transformation driven by agricultural income in SEA but no similar evidence in SSA.

The burdens of participation: A mixed-methods study of the effects of a nutrition-sensitive agriculture program on women’s time use in Malawi

Development programs often rely on women’s participation. However, there is little evidence of whether development programs that engage women’s unpaid labor – particularly in care work – add to their time burdens. We tested this hypothesis on a nutrition-sensitive agriculture program delivered through community-based preschools in Malawi. The mixed-methods study was conducted over one year using data from 1,168 female caregivers from a cluster-randomized control trial. A longitudinal binomial logistic regression model was used to estimate the proportion of time spent caregiving in a 24-hour period (expressed as minutes) at baseline and then separately for each treatment group at 6-months and 1-year post-randomization. In addition, two rounds of 38 qualitative in-depth interviews (n = 76) were conducted with women, men and adolescent girls to explore their perceptions of program activities, time use and gender attitudes. We found that the program quantitatively increased daily caregiving time for participating women by approximately 30 min. However, this effect occurred only during the lean season when preschool scale-up investments increased. Qualitatively, program-related tasks were not considered burdensome. Moreover, participants saw contributions as important investments in their children’s development. These findings add to limited evidence of the impacts of nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs and early childhood interventions on women’s time use. Measuring women’s participation through mixed-method evaluations can aid interpretation to avoid harm and to better understand the tradeoffs of women’s time.

Genebanks and market participation: evidence from groundnut farmers in Malawi

Abstract
Background
Genebanks contribute to poverty reduction as well as food and nutritional security by being one of the main sources of diversity for the development of improved crop varieties. While the welfare implications of adopting improved varieties have been documented in many rural settings, little attention has been placed on genebanks that often supply key traits and genetic diversity to plant breeders by providing seed samples. In this study, we examined the contribution of the genebank housed by the International Crops Research Institute (ICRISAT) to the development of improved groundnut varieties used by farmers in Malawi. We then related this apportioned genebank contribution to market outcomes, such as market participation and the quantity of groundnut sold in markets.

Methods
Pedigree data obtained through consultations with genebank scientists and breeders were used in combination with a three-wave balanced household-level panel dataset of 447 smallholder farmers in Malawi. Different econometric techniques were used, including a double hurdle model to understand market participation and quantity of groundnuts sold.

Results
We found households to be using six improved groundnut varieties, four of which were traced to the ICRISAT genebank. We analyzed pedigrees of the varieties and apportioned the ancestral contribution of the genebank accessions. Linking the improved varieties grown by farmers with genebank ancestry to market outcomes, we observed a positive association between the ICRISAT genebank and market participation. We could not establish a robust effect on the quantity of groundnuts sold conditional on participation. We found the results to be driven by the area under improved groundnuts.

Conclusion
The ICRISAT genebank has provided accessions that confer useful traits to improved varieties of groundnut adopted by farmers in Malawi. Our analysis indicates that access to genetic resources from genebanks has resulted in the development of improved varieties with traits that are preferred by farmers such as higher yields and resistance to diseases. The adoption of these improved varieties led to increased production surplus and reduced transaction costs, allowing farmers to better participate in local groundnut markets. The study points to the crucial role of genebanks as important sources of crop diversity for improved food security and incomes of smallholder farmers.

Measuring women's empowerment: Gender and time-use agency in Benin, Malawi and Nigeria

Time use, or how women and men allocate their time, is an important element of empowerment processes. To extend this area of study, this article proposes and explores the concept of time-use agency, which shifts the focus from the amount of time individuals spend on activities to the strategic choices they make about how to allocate their time. It draws on 92 semi-structured interviews from three qualitative studies in Benin, Malawi and Nigeria to explore and compare the salience of time-use agency as a component of empowerment. The article finds that time-use agency is salient among women and men and dictates how they can make and act upon strategic decisions related to how they allocate their time. It also finds that time-use agency is tied to other dimensions of agency beyond decision making and ways of exerting influence in the household. Its findings highlight that women's capacity to exercise time-use agency is conditional on gendered power dynamics and other barriers within households, which together are reciprocally related to local gender norms that dictate how women should spend their time.

Sex-disaggregated agricultural extension and weather variability in Africa south of the Sahara

Climate change and extreme weather shocks pose serious threats to a number of agricultural outcomes, including agricultural production, productivity, and income, especially when households depend heavily on this activity. Agricultural extension and rural advisory services are key instruments in promoting technical change, advancing agricultural productivity growth and, ultimately, improving farm livelihoods, and are expected to mitigate the negative effects of climate change and extreme weather shocks. Their mitigation effects, however, may vary depending on the sex of the recipient. This paper investigates the role of sex-disaggregated agricultural extension recipients in contexts where agricultural performance of farm households is affected by weather variability. To this aim, we match multiple rounds of panel microdata from the nationally representative, consumption-based Living Standards Measurement Study -Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), collected in four sub-Saharan African countries, with remote sensing data on biophysical dimensions over a long-term horizon as well as year-specific weather shocks. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a micro-level dataset with individual-level information on agricultural extension services’ recipients has been assembled and examined to investigate the effects of extreme weather shocks and climate change. Applying panel data econometric estimators, the study finds that agricultural extension and advisory services translate into higher agricultural performance of farm households where women are also among the beneficiaries, as compared to non-beneficiaries and households where beneficiaries are men only. Moreover, these services can mitigate the negative effects of weather variability and climate change, controlling for country and time fixed effects as well as holding all other variables constant. These results call for national and international policies and interventions strengthening rural advisory services, especially targeted to women in settings where household livelihoods are predominantly agriculture-based and weather variability and shocks are expected to negatively affect farming activities.

Extreme events and production shocks for key crops in southern Africa under climate change

Many studies have estimated the effect of climate change on crop productivity, often reflecting uncertainty about future climates by using more than one emissions pathway or multiple climate models, usually fewer than 30, and generally much fewer, with focus on the mean changes. Here we examine four emissions scenarios with 720,000 future climates per scenario over a 50-year period. We focus on the effect of low-frequency, high-impact weather events on crop yields in 10 countries of Southern Africa, aggregating from nearly 9,000 25-kilometer-square locations. In the highest emissions scenario, median maize yield is projected to fall by 9.2% for the region while the 5th percentile is projected to fall by 15.6% between the 2020s and 2060s. Furthermore, the frequency of a low frequency, 1-in-20-year low-yield event for rainfed maize is likely to occur every 3.5 years by the 2060s under the high emissions scenario. We also examine the impact of climate change on three other crops of considerable importance to the region: drybeans, groundnuts, and soybeans. Projected yield decline for each of these crops is less than for maize, but the impact varies from country to country and within each country. In many cases, the median losses are modest, but the losses in the bad weather years are generally much higher than under current climate, pointing to more frequent bouts with food insecurity for the region, unless investments are made to compensate for those production shocks.

Role of interactive radio programming in advancing women’s and youth’s empowerment and dietary diversity: Mixed method evidence from Malawi

Malawi’s slowly changing employment landscape and its implications for youth

Plant different, eat different? Insights from participatory agricultural research

We examine the association between on-farm production diversity on household dietary diversity in Malawi using microdata collected as part of an environmentally sustainable agricultural intensification program. The program primarily focuses on the integration of legumes into the cropping system through maize-legume intercropping and legume-legume intercropping. Relative to staple cereals such as maize, legumes are rich in micronutrients, contain better-quality protein, and lead to nitrogen fixation. Given the systematic difference we document between program beneficiaries and randomly sampled non-beneficiary (control) households, we employ causal instrumental variables mediation analysis to account for non-random selection and possible simultaneity between production and consumption decisions. We find a significant positive treatment effect on dietary diversity, led by an increase in production diversity. Analysis of potential pathways show that effects on dietary diversity stem mostly from consumption of diverse food items purchased from the market made possible through higher agricultural income. These findings highlight that, while increasing production for markets can enhance dietary diversity through higher income that would make affordable an expanded set of food items, the production of more nutritious crops such as pulses may not necessarily translate into greater own consumption. This may be due to the persistence of dietary habits, tastes, or other local factors that favor consumption of staples such as maize and encourage sales of more profitable and nutritious food items such as pulses. Pulses are a more affordable and environmentally sustainable source of protein than animal source food, and efforts should be made to enhance their nutritional awareness and contribution to sustainable food systems and healthier diets.

Influence of agricultural extension services on technical efficiency of maize farmers in Malawi

Recognising potential selection bias due to non-randomness of the data, this study used propensity score matching on data from a nationally representative fifth Integrated Household Survey (IHS5) to investigate the effect of agriculture extension services on the technical efficiency of maize farmers in Malawi. Technical efficiency levels were estimated using the stochastic frontier model. The results show that most farmers are technically efficient, with an average technical efficiency of 63%. This indicates that there is still a possibility to increase maize output by 37% using the same level of inputs. The results of the propensity score matching reveal that having access to agricultural extension services significantly increases maize farmers’ technical efficiency, by about 4%. This evidence presents an opportunity not only for farmers, but also for the relevant policymakers, to realise the potential of using agricultural extension services to enhance the production capacity of maize farmers.

Household livelihood diversification in rural Africa

Diversification is a common livelihood strategy for rural households in developing countries, with diversification being either a choice or necessity depending on individual household contexts. Using two waves of data (from 2009 and 2011) for 1773 households from eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, we examined livelihood diversification and its drivers. We examined livelihood diversification by considering household involvement in three livelihood activities: crop, livestock, and non-farm. Results indicated that 40% of households conducted all three livelihood activities, but there was heterogeneity in diversity levels. We used a correlated random effects model to identify the factors that pushed or pulled households to diversify their activities. Access to non-agricultural credit was positively associated with livelihood diversity as it can catalyze involvement in non-farm activities. Drought had a negative effect on livelihood diversity. Area of crop land had a positive effect on the number of livelihood activities conducted. We found that 53% of households added or removed at least one livelihood activity between 2009 and 2011, and the addition of non-farm activities was the most common change. Our results demonstrated the dynamic nature of livelihoods and importance of shocks (such as drought) and resource endowments (land) in understanding household livelihood diversification.

Economic evaluation of an early childhood development center–based agriculture and nutrition intervention in Malawi

Malnutrition is a leading cause of death and disability among children in low-income countries. Nutrition-sensitive interventions show promise in increasing food access and improving diets. There are possible synergies of integrating these programs with other sectors, improving effectiveness by leveraging resources. However, economic evaluations of these multi-sectoral programs are limited. We aimed to estimate the cost efficiency, cost-effectiveness, benefit-cost ratio, and net benefit of using community-based early childhood development (ECD) centers as platforms for an intervention promoting agricultural production and nutrition among households with young children in Malawi. The intervention was costed using bottom-up micro-costing and top-down expenditure analysis with a societal perspective and a 12-month horizon. Effectiveness estimates were derived from a cluster-randomized control trial. Premature deaths and stunting cases averted were estimated using the Lived Saved Tool. We calculated DALYs averted, and the value of three benefits streams resulting from reductions in premature mortality, increases in lifetime productivity and household agricultural productivity. We transferred the US value of a statistical life (VSL) to Malawi using an income elasticity of 1.5, and a 10% discount rate. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis was conducted using a Monte Carlo model. The intervention cost $197,377, reaching 4,806 beneficiaries at $41 per beneficiary, $595 per case of stunting, $18,310 per death, and $516 per DALY averted. Net benefit estimates ranged from $507,589 to $4,678,258, and benefit-cost ratios from 3.57 to 24.70. Sensitivity analyses confirmed a positive return on investment. Implementing agriculture-nutrition interventions through ECD platforms may be an efficient use of resources in Malawi and similar contexts.

The effect of ICT use on the profitability of young agripreneurs in Malawi

The agricultural sector’s significant position in an economy and high potential benefits of agricultural transformation give developing countries major opportunities, especially for youth, to commercially start an agricultural enterprise. Increasing youth engagement in agriculture is fundamental for sustainably transforming agriculture and reducing youth unemployment. In achieving this, information and communication technologies hold great potential. Harnessing youth agribusiness opportunities through the use of ICT and its innovations are key to increasing profitability and providing employment. The study assesses the effect of the intensity of ICT use on profit using data collected from 317 young agripreneurs and an ordered logit model. The results show that profitability increases with the number of ICT tools used to receive and disseminate information relevant to agribusinesses. Therefore, relevant stakeholders should strive towards the implementation of programs that increase the number of ICT tools that can be used in agribusinesses.

A case study analysis of extension service provision in Malawi

Evidence suggests that a lack of extension agents impedes the effective delivery of agricultural extension services in Malawi and many other developing nations. The purpose of this study was to examine the initiatives taken by the Malawi Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services Delivery (MaFAAS) to address the extension shortage. The research questions were addressed using a qualitative case study approach. MaFAAS and other partners launched an initiative to teach youth from local communities, particularly in rural regions, in agricultural extension so that they can serve their communities in positions comparable to extension agents. The effort resulted in the hiring of 427 extension agents to serve in their areas. While recruiting extension agents alone will not address the problem immediately, it is a start. The beneficial consequences of the Malawian organizations' partnership give an opportunity and potential paradigm for addressing the extension shortfall and difficulties farmers confront in Malawi and beyond.

Smart subsidies for sustainable soils: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in southern Malawi

Conventional agricultural practices – especially conventional tillage – are a major driver of soil erosion globally. While soil may not frequently considered a vulnerable natural resource, the erosion and degradation of soils poses a serious threat to food production and the production of numerous otherin situ andex situ ecosystem services. This study provides some of the first evidence on the effectiveness of a payments for ecosystem services (PES) program to encourage the adoption of soil conservation practices, specifically conservation agriculture (CA). Through minimized soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and diversified crop mix, CA is believed to enhance soil fertility and rehabilitate soil structure, with the resulting preservation of ecosystem service flows. By providing calibrated financial incentives, we demonstrate that it is possible to substantially increase the extent and intensity of CA adoption. What’s more, we show that a novel incentive mechanisms that leverages social networks for the consolidation of fragmented land may be more effective at bringing more land under conservation objectives, even if some of the additional land does not officially fall under the purview of the PES program. We also demonstrate that some of the supposed weaknesses hindering the adoption of CA – lower yields in the short-run and higher expenditures on weed control – were not necessarily obstacles in our study area, perhaps suggesting that the provision of subsidies need not continue into perpetuity, but may only be needed to overcome short-term transition costs.

Soil health and grain yield impacts of climate resilient agriculture projects: Evidence from southern Malawi

Women’s empowerment and gender equality in agricultural value chains: Evidence from four countries in Asia and Africa

Women play important roles at different nodes of both agricultural and off-farm value chains, but in many countries their contributions are either underestimated or limited by prevailing societal norms or gender-specific barriers. We use primary data collected in Asia (Bangladesh, Philippines) and Africa (Benin, Malawi) to examine the relationships between women’s empowerment, gender equality, and participation in a variety of local agricultural value chains that comprise the food system. We find that the value chain and the specific node of engagement matter, as do other individual and household characteristics, but in different ways depending on country context. Entrepreneurship—often engaged in by wealthier households with greater ability to take risks—is not necessarily empowering for women; nor is household wealth, as proxied by their asset ownership. Increased involvement in the market is not necessarily correlated with greater gender equality. Education is positively correlated with higher empowerment of both men and women, but the strength of this association varies. Training and extension services are generally positively associated with empowerment but could also exacerbate the inequality in empowerment between men and women in the same household. All in all, culture and context determine whether participation in value chains—and which node of the value chain—is empowering. In designing food systems interventions, care should be taken to consider the social and cultural contexts in which these food systems operate, so that interventions do not exacerbate existing gender inequalities.

Follow the leader? A field experiment on social influence

We conduct an artefactual field experiment in endogenously formed groups in rural Malawi to investigate social influence in risk taking. Treatments vary whether individuals observe the behavior of a formally elected leader, an external leader, or a random peer. Results show social influence in risk taking with differential influence by leader type. The decisions made by peers are most influential, followed by those made by formal leaders, and then external leaders. Exploratory analysis suggests that participants follow peers because they extract information from their choices and share risks with them; while other forms of social utility are gained from following the example of leaders.

Earned and unearned income: Experimental evidence on expenditures and labor supply in Malawi

Though the differential impacts of earned and unearned income have long been of interest to economists and policymakers, the study of this question is often conflated by other differences between the income streams. We conduct a field experiment in Malawi in which we examine the differential short-term effect of earned and unearned income on the allocation of expenditures and labor supply, holding all other factors constant. All participants receive an equal size cash payment and make the same time investment; half are required to work, and half are not. Our main finding is that the work requirement results in a reallocation of labor supply away from household work in the very short term. Conversely, there is no evidence that the allocation of expenditures across categories is affected.

Impact of interactive radio programming on agricultural technology adoption and crop diversification in Malawi

Conservation agriculture improves adaptive capacity of cropping systems to climate stress in Malawi

Context
Adaptation to climate stress is an unprecedented challenge facing cropping systems. Most adaptation assessments focus on how adaptation options affect yields of a single crop under different weather or climate conditions. Yet, cropping systems often comprise more than one crop, and holistic assessments should consider all crops grown in a cropping system. One adaptation option is Conservation Agriculture that is commonly defined around a set of three principles: minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent soil organic cover, and crop species diversification.

Objective
Here we estimated the statistical effect of Conservation Agriculture on cropping-system yields under historical climate conditions.

Methods
The cropping-system yields considered all crops grown including maize (Zea mays L.) and legumes in intercropping or rotation, or both. The climate conditions included conditions of heat stress for maize and precipitation balances during the maize growing season. Heat stress for maize was studied using growing degree days over 30 °C. Precipitation balance was the difference between precipitation and reference evapotranspiration. Data included 6296 yield observations from on-farm trials in farmer plots conducted over 14 seasons (2005–2006 to 2018–2019) in ten communities in Malawi. These yield data were coupled with daily weather data. We studied three treatments: (1) a Control Practice treatment where the soil was tilled, crop residues were removed, and there was no crop species diversification, (2) a No-Tillage treatment where the soil was not tilled, crop residues were retained, and there was no crop species diversification, and (3) a Conservation Agriculture treatment where the soil was not tilled, crop residues were retained, and there was crop species diversification through legume intercropping. The use of maize varieties and legume rotation changed over time; however, the treatments studied remained the same over the entire length of the on-farm trials period in all individual communities.

Results and conclusions
Results of our study showed that heat stress for maize had a negative effect on cropping-system yields for non-stress-tolerant maize varieties and no legume rotation, although the Conservation Agriculture treatment reduced this negative effect compared with the Control Practice treatment. With the use of stress-tolerant maize varieties and legume rotation and Conservation Agriculture, our results suggest that heat stress for maize did not have a negative effect on cropping-system yields.

Significance
Our results demonstrate how Conservation Agriculture can improve the adaptive capacity of cropping systems and this provides urgently needed evidence on how farmers can adapt to climate stress.

When communities pull their weight: The economic costs of an integrated agriculture and nutrition home-grown preschool meal intervention in Malawi

Background: Community-based preschool meals can provide an effective platform for implementing integrated agriculture and nutrition programs. However, there is little evidence on the costs and cost-efficiency of implementing these types of multisectoral interventions.

Objectives: Assess the economic costs and cost-efficiency of implementing an effective integrated nutrition-sensitive intervention through a preschool platform in Malawi, including community-level contributions.

Methods: The Strengthening Economic Evaluation for Multisectoral Strategies for Nutrition (SEEMS-Nutrition) framework and methods were applied to assess financial and economic costs of the intervention. A mixed-methods approach was used to measure and allocate costs for program activities and inputs using financial expenditure data combined with micro-costing. All costs were allocated to input and expenditure categories using the SEEMS-Nutrition framework. To facilitate comparisons with existing school meals programs, activities were also mapped against a standardized school feeding supply chain framework.

Results: The total annualized cost of the program was US$197 377, inclusive of both financial and economic costs. The annual economic cost of the program ranged from US$160 per preschool child to US$41 per beneficiary. The principal drivers of cost by program activity were training (46%), school meals provision (19%), monitoring and evaluation (12%), and establishing and running community groups (6.5%). Notably, community contributions accounted for 25% and were driven by food donations and volunteer labor.

Conclusions: Cost per beneficiary estimates of implementing an integrated agriculture–nutrition intervention through an early childhood development platform compare favorably with similar interventions. Further research is needed that applies a standardized economic evaluation framework to such multisectoral interventions.

Measurement error mechanisms matter: Agricultural intensification with farmer misperceptions and misreporting

The mechanism(s) that generate measurement error matter for inference. Survey measurement error is typically thought to represent simple misreporting correctable through improved measurement. But errors might also or alternatively reflect respondent misperceptions that materially affect the respondent decisions under study. We show analytically that these alternate data generating processes imply different appropriate regression specifications and have distinct effects on the bias in parameter estimates. We introduce a simple empirical technique to generate unbiased estimates under more general conditions and to apportion measurement error between misreporting and misperceptions in measurement error when one has both self‐reported and objectively measured observations of the same explanatory variable. We then apply these techniques to the longstanding question of agricultural intensification: Do farmers increase input application rates per unit area as the size of the plots they cultivate decreases? Using nationally representative data from four sub‐Saharan African countries, we find evidence that measurement error in plot size reflects a mixture of farmer misreporting and misperceptions. The results matter for inference around the intensification hypothesis and call into question whether more objective, precise measures are always preferable when estimating behavioral parameters.

Consumer choices and demand for tilapia in urban Malawi: What are the complementarities and trade-offs?

Effectiveness of the lead farmer approach in agricultural extension service provision: Nationally representative panel data analysis in Malawi

Disclosure, reporting and help seeking among child survivors of violence: A cross-country analysis

Violence against children is a pervasive public health issue, with limited data available across multiple contexts. This study explores the rarely studied prevalence and dynamics around disclosure, reporting and help-seeking behaviours of children who ever experienced physical and/or sexual violence.

Value chains to improve diets: Diagnostics to support intervention design in Malawi

Governments and development partners looking to accelerate progress in addressing malnutrition have been examining how to use interventions in value-chains to improve diets. However, the links between interventions in value chains and diets involve a range of direct and indirect effects that are not yet well understood. We apply a mixed-method multisectoral diagnostic to examine potential interventions in food systems to improve diets of smallholder farmers in Malawi. We examine entry points for interventions involving public and private-sectors, and explore the methodological requirements for undertaking this type of multisectoral analysis. We find that although food consumption is dominated by maize, a range of nutritious foods are also being consumed; including leafy greens, fruits, chicken, dried fish, dried beans and peas, and groundnuts. Yet important deficits in nutrient intake remain prevalent in low-income households due to inadequate quantity of consumption. While increasing consumption through own-production is one potentially important channel to increase quantity of nutritious foods available (particularly fruits and leafy green vegetables), markets also play a potentially important role. Nutritious foods are available on markets year-round, although strong seasonality impacts the availability and price of perishable products. For beans, peas and groundnuts, supply appears to be available throughout the year, with price fluctuations relatively controlled due to storage capacity and imports. The capacity of markets to supply safe and nutritious food is limited by a number of issues, including poor hygiene; lack of infrastructure for storage and selling; limited information on nutrition, and weak coordination among sellers and producers. Other bottlenecks include: on-farm constraints for expanded production, consumers with limited purchasing capacity, intense competition among sellers and few services for sellers to increase volume of product sold during peak demand. The diagnostics identify the role of information-related interventions to optimize decisions related to food choices, involving a range of different foods and value-chains, that could potentially lead to short- and medium-term improvements in diets. Longer-term and more resource-intensive interventions are also identified, such as improving capacity for product differentiation, processing, storage, and market infrastructure across a different range of food chains, so as to maximise coherence between short- and long-term planning. The findings highlight the benefits of applying a strategic, food systems-based approach of identifying specific and complementary actions for both the public and private sectors that can improve the diets of low-income populations.

Does relative deprivation induce migration?: evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This analysis revisits the decades-old relative deprivation theory of migration. In contrast to the traditional view that migration is driven by absolute income maximization, we test whether relative deprivation induces migration in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. Taking advantage of the internationally comparable longitudinal data from integrated household and agriculture surveys from Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda, we use panel fixed effects to estimate the effects of relative deprivation on migration decisions. Using per capita consumption expenditure and multidimensional wealth index as well-being measures, we find that a household’s migration decision is based not only on its absolute well-being level but also on the relative position of the household in the well-being distribution of the community in which it resides. We also discover that the effect of relative deprivation on migration is amplified in rural, agricultural, and male-headed households. Results are robust to alternative specifications including the use of Hausman Taylor Instrumental Variable (HTIV) estimator and pooled data across the five countries. Results confirm that the “migration-relative deprivation” relationship also holds in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that policies designed to check rural–urban migration through rural transformation and poverty reduction programs should use caution because such programs can increase economic inequality, which further increases migration flow.

To sell or consume? Gendered household decision-making on crop production, consumption, and sale in Malawi

Employment exposure: Employment and wage effects in urban Malawi

Temporary migration and climate variation in Eastern Africa

Africa is likely to experience warming and increased climate variability by the late 21st century. Climate extremes have been linked to adverse economic outcomes. Hence, adaptation is a key component of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreements and development assistance. Effective climate adaptation policy requires an understanding of how temperature and rainfall variability affect migration patterns. Yet, how individuals in developing countries manage climate variation is poorly understood, especially in Africa. Combining high-resolution climate data with panel micro-data on migration, labor participation, and demographics, we employ regression analysis to assess temporary migration responses to local temperature and precipitation anomalies in four East African countries. We find that climate impacts are most pronounced in urban areas, with a standard deviation temperature increase and rainfall decrease leading to respective 10 and 12 percent declines in out-migration relative to mean values. Evidence from other labor market outcomes suggests that urban out-migration is not associated with reduced local employment opportunities. Instead, declines in urban out-migration appear to coincide with negative local climate employment impacts. These results challenge the narrative that temporary out-migration serves as a safety valve during climate extremes and that climate change will most strongly affect out-migration rates from rural areas in developing countries.

A community-based early childhood development center platform promoting diversified diets and food production increases the mean probability of adequacy of intake of preschoolers in Malawi: A cluster randomized trial

Background: Young children in Malawi consume low-quality diets lacking micronutrients critical for their development. Objective: To evaluate the impact of an agriculture and nutrition behavior change communication (BCC) intervention implemented through community-based childcare centers on the nutrient adequacy of diets of children living in food-insecure settings in Malawi.

The impact on farmer incomes of a nationwide scaling up of the farmer business school program: Lessons and insights from central Malawi

Climate and poverty in Africa South of the Sahara

To estimate the effects of weather conditions on welfare globally, cross-country comparisons need to rely on international poverty lines and comparable data sources at the micro-level. To this end, nationally representative household surveys can offer a useful instrument, also at the sub-national level. This study seeks to expand the existing knowledge on the determinants of poverty in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA), examining how long-term climatic conditions and year-specific weather shocks affect expenditure per capita. We take advantage of a novel and unique dataset combining consumption-based household surveys for 24 SSA countries -representative of more than half of the African population and two thirds of SSA- and geospatial information on agro-climatic conditions, market access and other spatial covariates of poverty. To our knowledge, it is the first time that a welfare-based, multidisciplinary, micro-level dataset with such wide spatial coverage has been assembled and examined. Our analysis relies on a linear and spatial model at the household- and district-level, respectively, both controlling for socio-economic, demographic, and geographic confounding factors. Results are consistent across econometric approaches, showing that living in more humid areas is positively associated with welfare, while the opposite occurs living in hotter areas, as existing literature shows. Flood shocks -defined as annual rainfall higher than one standard deviation from the 50-year average- are associated to a 35% decrease in total and food per-capita consumption and 17 percentage point increase in extreme poverty. On the other hand, extreme shortages of rain and heat shocks show an uncertain effect, even when estimates control for spatial correlation between welfare and weather conditions using the spatial error correction model. Given the heterogeneous effects of climatic events across SSA macro-regions, local-specific adaptation and mitigation strategies are suggested to help bringing households on a sustainable path.

Knowledge, attitude and practice of Malawian farmers on pre- and post-harvest crop management to mitigate aflatoxin contamination in groundnut, maize and sorghum: Implication for behavioral change

A knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) study was conducted in three districts of Malawi to test whether the training had resulted in increased knowledge and adoption of recommended pre- and post-harvest crop management practices, and their contribution to reducing aflatoxin contamination in groundnut, maize and sorghum. The study was conducted with 900 farmers at the baseline and 624 farmers at the end-line, while 726 and 696 harvested crop samples were collected for aflatoxin testing at the baseline and end-line, respectively. Results show that the knowledge and practice of pre- and post-harvest crop management for mitigating aflatoxin were inadequate among the farmers at the baseline but somewhat improved after the training as shown at the end-line. As a result, despite unfavorable weather, the mean aflatoxin contamination level in their grain samples decreased from 83.6 to 55.8 ppb (p < 0.001). However, it was also noted that increased knowledge did not significantly change farmers’ attitude toward not consuming grade-outs because of economic incentive incompatibility, leaving potential for improving the practices further. This existing gap in the adoption of aflatoxin mitigation practices calls for approaches that take into account farmers’ needs and incentives to attain sustainable behavioral change.

Designing interventions in local value chains for improved health and nutrition: Insights from Malawi

Despite the strong interest on the role of agri-food value chains in advancing health and nutrition goals, guidance on how to actually design and assess related development programming has only recently emerged. This paper begins with a brief review of research on nutrition-sensitive value chains in developing countries. It then presents the Value Chains and Nutrition framework for intervention design that explores food supply and demand conditions across a portfolio of local value chains that are relevant for improving nutrition outcomes. We explore the framework in a case study on rural Malawi. Available evidence highlights the dominance of maize in diets, but also the willingness of rural households to consume other nutritious foods (e.g. leafy greens, tree fruits, dried fish) during the year. Addressing the supply constraints (e.g. low productivity, seasonality) and demand constraints (e.g. low income, preference for maize) along local value chains will require carefully sequenced interventions within and across value chains. Strategies for achieving nutrition goals in this context will require stronger collaborative ties between NGOs, government agencies and the private sector and deeper learning among stakeholders than has typically been the case. We conclude with recommendations for future work on frameworks and tools for supporting the design of value chain interventions with potential to advance health and nutrition goals.

Ex‐ante evaluation of promising soybean innovations for sub‐Saharan Africa

This study undertakes an ex‐ante evaluation of the effects of alternative technology and policy options on soybean supply and demand in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) to 2050. Current soybean consumption in SSA is dominated by cooking oil followed by soybean cake used as animal feed. Due to weak processing sectors and low soybean yields, the region is currently importing about 70% of its consumption requirements. Based on the results from a geospatial bio‐economic modeling framework, soybean consumption in SSA is projected to more than double by 2050 compared to 2010 due in part to a rising population and rising incomes. On the other hand, supply from domestic production is projected to increase by 80% over the same period. Hence, by 2050, net imports into SSA would be nearly 4 times higher than supply from domestic production. Under a future drier climate, some of the production gains achieved through soybean research and extension would be lost and this would further worsen the soybean demand gap in SSA relative to the baseline. This study shows that relying on conventional breeding alone to increase soybean yields in SSA would not be enough to substantially reduce the future demand gap. A combination of promising innovations affecting the soybean value chain across SSA would be needed to close the soybean demand gap in SSA by 2050 under a drier future climate.

Perspectives of adolescent and young adults on poverty-related stressors: a qualitative study in Ghana, Malawi and Tanzania

Objectives: To define key stressors experienced and coping behaviours within poor agrarian communities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Design: Descriptive qualitative study incorporating inductive thematic analysis.

Participants: 81 participants purposely sampled, stratified by age (adolescents and young adults) and sex

Setting: The study was conducted in villages in Ghana, Malawi, and Tanzania.

Results: Stressors were thematically grouped into those directly related to poverty and the lack of basic necessities (eg, food insecurity), and additional stressors (eg, drought) that worsen poverty-related stress. Impacts on functioning, health and well-being and key coping behaviours, both positive and negative, were identified. The findings together inform a more nuanced view of stress within these contexts.

Conclusion: Although participants were asked to provide general reflections about stress in their community, the salience of poverty-related stressors was ubiquitously reflected in respondents’ responses. Poverty-related stressors affect development, well-being and gender-based violence. Future research should focus on interventions to alleviate poverty-related stress to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Effect of changes in population density and crop productivity on farm households in Malawi

This study examines the ex‐ante farm‐household effects of changes in family size, yield potential, and yield gaps using a farm‐household simulation model that reflects the economic and biophysical conditions of central Malawi. Disparities between growth in human population and crop yields present challenges for farm‐household crop production and income in sub‐Saharan Africa. We focus on the effect of growth in yield potential and a more efficient use of livestock manure as approaches to improving crop production and incomes in the face of looming population pressures. Our results suggest that, even without considering climate change, expected changes in population density and crop prices in 2050 mean that per person crop production and income may fall by 21% compared to 2013 values if yield potential and yield gaps remain constant. However, per person crop production and income could increase in 2050 by 8% compared to 2013 values if (1) growth rates of yield potential rise for maize by 1.13% each year and for legumes rise by at least 0.4% each year, and (2) farmers use livestock manure more efficiently. Our foresight approach to considering crop production at the farm‐household scale supplements macro‐scale analyses of the production dimension of food security.

Climate change and developing country growth: The cases of Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia

We consider the interplay of climate change impacts, global mitigation policies, and the economic interests of developing countries to 2050. Focusing on Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, we employ a structural approach to biophysical and economic modeling that incorporates climate uncertainty and allows for rigorous comparison of climate, biophysical, and economic outcomes across global mitigation regimes. We find that effective global mitigation policies generate two sources of benefit. First, less distorted climate outcomes result in typically more favorable and less variable economic outcomes. Second, successful global mitigation policies reduce global fossil fuel producer prices, relative to unconstrained emissions, providing a substantial terms of trade boost of structural fuel importers. Combined, these gains are on the order of or greater than estimates of mitigation costs. These results highlight the interests of most developing countries in effective global mitigation policies, even in the relatively near term, with much larger benefits post-2050.

Risk factors for childhood violence and polyvictimization: A cross-country analysis from three regions

Does providing agricultural and nutrition information to both men and women improve household food security? Evidence from Malawi

Using a community-based early childhood development center as a platform to promote production and consumption diversity increases children's dietary intake and reduces stunting in Malawi: A cluster-randomized trial

Children in Malawi face nutritional risks related to low-quality diets and chronic malnutrition. This study evaluated the impact of a 1-y early childhood development (ECD) center–based agriculture and nutrition intervention aimed at improving household production diversity, maternal knowledge on child nutrition and feeding practices, and children's diets and anthropometric measures.

Myth-busting? Confronting six common perceptions about unconditional cash transfers as a poverty reduction strategy in Africa

This paper summarizes evidence on six perceptions associated with cash transfer programming, using eight rigorous evaluations conducted on large-scale government unconditional cash transfers in sub-Saharan Africa under the Transfer Project. Specifically, it investigates if transfers: 1) induce higher spending on alcohol or tobacco; 2) are fully consumed (rather than invested); 3) create dependency (reduce participation in productive activities); 4) increase fertility; 5) lead to negative community-level economic impacts (including price distortion and inflation); and 6) are fiscally unsustainable. The paper presents evidence refuting each claim, leading to the conclusion that these perceptions—insofar as they are utilized in policy debates—undercut potential improvements in well-being and livelihood strengthening among the poor, which these programs can bring about in sub-Saharan Africa, and globally. It concludes by underscoring outstanding research gaps and policy implications for the continued expansion of unconditional cash transfers in the region and beyond.

Data Descriptor: Smart subsidies for catchment conservation in Malawi

Conservation agriculture (CA) is a management paradigm in which soil is covered outside of cropping seasons, minimally disturbed, and recharged with nitrogen-fixing legumes. Finding effective ways to encourage CA is a centuries-old problem playing out acutely today in Sub-Saharan Africa. To better understand this issue, we have collected data on rural livelihoods and CA adoption during a two-year intervention in southern Malawi. The intervention evaluated rates of CA adoption under two different structures of payment and three levels of monitoring. The dataset includes a baseline and endline survey covering 1,900 households, along with surveys conducted with participants opting into the intervention. Baseline and endline questions included modules on farm-level inputs and production at the plot-crop level; plot characteristics; household composition and assets; savings, loans, and other sources of income; neighborhood characteristics; and perceptions regarding CA. Registration questionnaires in the intervention included detailed assessments of recent production in plots being registered to the intervention, and basic information for all other plots; and basic information on household structure and assets.

Selective attention and information loss in the lab-to-farm knowledge chain: The case of Malawian agricultural extension programs

Beyond agriculture versus non-agriculture: Decomposing sectoral growth–poverty linkages in five African countries

Africa’s development debate is often cast as “agriculture versus non-agriculture”, with agriculture’s proponents arguing that agricultural growth is more effective at reducing poverty. This “dual economy” perspective overlooks the heterogeneity within and synergies between these two broad sectors. Recent studies decompose agriculture into subsectors and find that agricultural growth led by smallholder farmers is even more effective at reducing poverty than larger-scale estate farms. In contrast, few studies estimate subsectoral growth–poverty linkages for non-agriculture. Yet we strongly expect, for example, that growth led by informal traders or foreign-owned mining companies will have quite different implications for poverty reduction. Different perspectives on what constitutes “non-agriculture” might therefore explain divergent views on its relative importance for poverty reduction. To address this gap in our understanding, we estimate sectoral poverty–growth elasticities using economy-wide models for five African countries. While our estimated elasticities are higher for agriculture than for non-agriculture as a whole, the extent to which this is true varies considerably across nonagricultural subsectors (and across countries). We find that the poverty–growth elasticities for trade and transport services and manufacturing, especially agro-processing, are often close to, and sometimes exceed, agriculture’s. This means that growth led by these nonagricultural subsectors might be as effective as agriculture at reaching the poor. This confirms the need for a more nuanced treatment of non-agriculture in Africa’s policy debate, and may explain conflicting perspectives on agriculture’s role vis-à-vis non-agriculture.

Trade-offs and synergies between yield, labor, profit, and risk in Malawian maize-based cropping systems

Land degradation, population growth, and chronic poverty in Eastern and Southern Africa challenge the sustainability of livelihoods for smallholder farmers. These farmers often manage soils depleted of nutrients, apply limited amounts of mineral fertilizer, and take decisions about their cropping systems that involve multiple trade-offs. The rotation of cereals with legumes bears agronomic and ecological merit; however, the socio-economic implications of the cereal-legume rotation require a deeper understanding. This study explores the yield, labor, profit, and risk implications of different legume and mineral fertilizer practices in maize-based cropping systems in central Malawi. Our method involves coupling crop modeling and an agricultural household survey with a socio-economic analysis. We use a process-based cropping systems model to simulate the yield effects of integrating legumes into maize monocultures and applying mineral fertilizer over multiple seasons. We combine the simulated yields with socio-economic data from an agricultural household survey to calculate indicators of cropping-system performance. Our results show that a maize-groundnut rotation increases average economic profits by 75% compared with maize monoculture that uses more mineral fertilizer than in the rotation. The maize-groundnut rotation increases the stability of profits, reduces the likelihood of negative profits, and increases risk-adjusted profits. In contrast, the maize-groundnut rotation has a 54% lower average caloric yield and uses more labor than the maize monoculture with mineral fertilization. By comparing labor requirements with labor supply at the household scale, we show for the first time that the additional labor requirements of the maize-groundnut rotation can increase the likelihood of experiencing a labor shortage, if this rotation is undertaken by farm households in central Malawi. We demonstrate that risk and labor factors can be important when examining trade-offs among alternative cropping systems.

Achieving food security and industrial development in Malawi: Are export restrictions the solution?

This study assesses the economy-wide effects of Malawi’s long-term maize export ban, which was only recently lifted, and a proposed oilseed export levy intended to improve food security and support local processing industries, respectively. We find that maize export bans only benefit the urban non-poor, while poor farmers’ incomes and maize consumption levels decline in the longer run. The oilseed export levy also fails to achieve its long run objectives: even when tax revenues are used to further subsidize food processors, their gains in value-addition are outweighed by declining agricultural value-addition. More generally, these results show that while export restrictions may have the desired outcomes in the short run, production responses may render the policies ineffective in the medium to long run. Ultimately, such restrictive policies reinforce a subsistence approach to agriculture, which is inconsistent with the stated economic transformation goals of many Sub-Saharan countries.

How diversified is cropping in Malawi? Patterns, determinants and policy implications

Youth migration and labour constraints in African agrarian households

Policies for a sustainable biomass energy sector in Malawi: Enhancing energy and food security simultaneously

Biomass energy still dominates the energy sector in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular as the main cooking energy source in rural and urban areas. The strong linkages to food security and the environment place biomass energy at the heart of sustainable development, a fact that is largely ignored by policy makers in favor of modern energy. At the same time, population and GDP growth are exacerbating already existing supply–demand imbalances in highly populated countries such as Malawi. These trends make it imperative to identify policy interventions that promote sustainable biomass energy while simultaneously considering linkages with other sectors. We use new data on demand and supply for biomass energy in Malawi and develop a model that estimates fuelwood demand based on actual diets and project demand in future years. We simulate how demand side interventions in the form of improved cookstoves affect biomass demand and built a behavioral model to analyze the potential of agroforestry for promoting a sustainable biomass energy sector in Malawi. Our findings show that policy measures aimed at increasing cooking efficiency are not enough to decrease demand for cooking energy due to high population growth. Supply side interventions like agroforestry on the other hand will not only increase sustainable supply, but can also enhance food security and protect the environment. We find that biomass energy can be inherently sustainable and should be an integral part of every energy sector strategy in developing countries as well as of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Evaluating irrigation investments in Malawi: economy‐wide impacts under uncertainty and labor constraints

Irrigation expansion is critical to increase crop yields and mitigate effects from climate change in Sub‐Saharan Africa, but the low profitability has led to little irrigation investments in the region so far. Using an integrated modeling framework, we simultaneously evaluate the returns to irrigation arising from both economic and biophysical impact channels to understand what determines the profitability of irrigation in Malawi. Our results confirm that the returns to irrigation cannot cover the costs in Malawi. While labor‐intensive irrigation expansion leads to unfavorable structural change in the short‐run, the profitability hinges on low irrigated yields that fall far from expectations due to insufficient input use and crop management techniques. On the other hand, we find that the nonmonetary benefits of irrigation regarding higher food security, lower poverty, and reduced vulnerability to climate change make investments in irrigation worthwhile to improve the livelihoods of smallholders.

Do as they did: Peer effects explain adoption of conservation agriculture in Malawi

Adoption of the trinity of practices known commonly today as conservation agriculture (CA)—maintaining soil cover, reducing tillage, and enhancing soil nitrogen through legumes—is a critical process to the management of erosion in rural landscapes, and maintenance of aquatic habitats and hydropower potential. However, the large literature on the benefits and risks of CA fails to find any universal determinants of adoption, with competing uses for crop residues, availability of labor, and access to physical inputs common constraints appearing in different contexts. We conduct a study in the specific context of Malawi, using ethnographic interviewing to draw out possible decision criteria and machine learning to identify their explanatory power. This study is structured to inform the question: “How do farmers decide to adopt the specific activities of CA in Malawi?” We find that more than any other factor, adoption by neighbors (i.e., peer effects) matters, with possible implications for the overall cost of encouraging CA (e.g., through subsidies) as it is taken up across a landscape.

Measuring postharvest losses at the farm level in Malawi

This article measures farm‐level postharvest losses for maize, soya and groundnuts among 1,200 households in Malawi. Farmers answered a detailed questionnaire designed to learn about losses during harvest and transport, processing and storage and which measures both complete losses and crop damage. The findings indicate that fewer than half of households report suffering losses conditional on growing each crop. Conditional on losses occurring, the loss averages between 5 and 12 per cent of the farmer's total harvest. Compared to nationally representative data that measure losses using a single survey question, this study documents a far greater percentage of farmers experiencing losses. We find that losses are concentrated in harvest and processing activities for groundnuts and maize; for soya, they are highest during processing. Existing interventions have primarily targeted storage activities; however, these results suggest that targeting other activities may be worthwhile.

Early adoption of conservation agriculture practices: Understanding partial compliance in programs with multiple adoption decisions

The impact of agricultural extension services in the context of a heavily subsidized input system: The case of Malawi

Agricultural household effects of fertilizer price changes for smallholder farmers in central Malawi

This simulation study explored the agricultural household effects of changes in the price of inorganic nitrogen fertilizer for farmers in central Malawi. We selected the Dedza district to conduct this study, which is a district reliant on maize production for household livelihoods. This study used data from a household survey to develop and calibrate an agricultural household model for a representative household. The survey focused on socio-economic and agronomic factors. This included plot-level agronomic details for crop inputs and yields. Using our dynamic model, we found a negative association between fertilizer prices and fertilizer use, maize area, and income. Removing fertilizer prices led to an increased use of nitrogen fertilizer at the household scale from 16.8 kg to 49.6 kg and this helped increase household income by 52%. We calculated an average own-price elasticity of fertilizer demand of − 0.92. Although higher fertilizer prices increased legume acreage, which had potential environmental benefits, household income fell. Our benefit-cost ratio calculations suggest that government actions that deliver changes in fertilizer prices are relatively cost effective. Our study highlights the reliance of households on maize production and consumption for their livelihood, and the effects that changes in fertilizer prices can have upon them.

Targeting, bias, and expected impact of complex innovations on developing-country agriculture: Evidence from Malawi

Agronomic analyses of new technologies are often conducted under carefully controlled research station programs or trials managed by self‐selected farmers. Oftentimes, the technologies are then scaled up with minimal evaluation under real‐world conditions. Yet, the interim step between agronomic trials and large‐scale promotion is crucial to generate evidence on the social and economic impact of technologies that is both internally valid and generalizable. The article focuses on a participatory action research program in Malawi designed to test and identify scalable technology options to intensify the smallholder sector and contribute to poverty reduction and food and nutrition security. We examine the socioeconomic characteristics of farmers testing technologies and find evidence of systematic targeting of better‐endowed farmers. After controlling for observable differences using matching and a doubly robust estimator, we find evidence of early positive effects on maize yield and harvest value, although placebo tests suggest possible selection on unobservables. We note that attention should be given to program design and household characterization to better define and improve targeting criteria, technology selection, and external validity.

Improving child nutrition and development through community-based childcare centres in Malawi – The NEEP-IE study: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background The Nutrition Embedded Evaluation Programme Impact Evaluation (NEEP-IE) study is a cluster randomised controlled trial designed to evaluate the impact of a childcare centre-based integrated nutritional and agricultural intervention on the diets, nutrition and development of young children in Malawi. The intervention includes activities to improve nutritious food production and training/behaviour-change communication to improve food intake, care and hygiene practices. This paper presents the rationale and study design for this randomised control trial. Methods Sixty community-based childcare centres (CBCCs) in rural communities around Zomba district, Malawi, were randomised to either (1) a control group where children were attending CBCCs supported by Save the Children’s Early Childhood Health and Development (ECD) programme, or (2) an intervention group where nutritional and agricultural support activities were provided alongside the routine provision of the Save the Children’s ECD programme. Primary outcomes at child level include dietary intake (measured through 24-h recall), whilst secondary outcomes include child development (Malawi Development Assessment Tool (MDAT)) and nutritional status (anthropometric measurements). At household level, primary outcomes include smallholder farmer production output and crop-mix (recall of last production season). Intermediate outcomes along theorised agricultural and nutritional pathways were measured. During this trial, we will follow a mixed-methods approach and undertake child-, household-, CBCC- and market-level surveys and assessments as well as in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with project stakeholders. Discussion Assessing the simultaneous impact of preschool meals on diets, nutrition, child development and agriculture is a complex undertaking. This study is the first to explicitly examine, from a food systems perspective, the impact of a preschool meals programme on dietary choices, alongside outcomes in the nutritional, child development and agricultural domains. The findings of this evaluation will provide evidence to support policymakers in the scale-up of national programmes.

Agricultural correlates of aggregate nutritional outcomes in Malawi: District-level rank analysis

Obtaining empirical evidence on the importance of agriculture in determining nutritional status is difficult, as there are few data sets that contain information on both nutrition outcomes and the agricultural livelihoods of survey respondents. Here we take advantage of the fact that the Demographic and Health Survey fielded in Malawi in 2010, which collected detailed information on nutrition outcomes, used comparable survey strata to a household consumption and expenditure survey in 2010–2011 that collected extensive information on agricultural production. While the samples for the two surveys involved different households, the results of both are representative at district level. Using a non-parametric rank correlation approach, we use the district-level results from the surveys to examine whether there are associations between five aggregate nutritional outcomes and characteristics of agricultural production in 27 districts of Malawi. The analysis is then extended to explore other non-agricultural determinants of nutritional status. Limited associations between aggregate agricultural production and aggregate nutritional outcomes were found, suggesting that the direct relationship between the two is relatively weak in Malawi. Moreover, the sign of many of the associations runs contrary to expectations: in some cases, strengthened agricultural livelihoods are negatively related to nutritional outcomes. When the analysis is extended to consider non-agricultural determinants of nutritional status, slightly stronger associations are found – aggregated measures of women’s empowerment, the availability of food and micronutrients and measures of household wealth are positively related to aggregate nutrition outcomes. Nonetheless, this analysis should be treated as exploratory. It is presented to stimulate more detailed examination of the association in Malawi between nutrition outcomes and agriculture using individual- and household-level data.

Tracking agricultural spending when government structures and accounting systems change: The case of Malawi

Lean-season food transfers affect children’s diets and household food security: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Malawi

Leveling the field for biofuels: Comparing the economic and environmental impacts of biofuel and other export crops in Malawi

Biofuels often raise the specter of food insecurity, water resource depletion, and greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing. These concerns underpin the “sustainability criteria” governing access to European biofuel markets. However, it is unclear if producing biofuels in low‐income countries does exacerbate poverty and food insecurity, and moreover, whether the sustainability criteria should apply to all agricultural exports entering European markets. We develop an integrated modeling framework to simultaneously assess the economic and environmental impacts of producing biofuels in Malawi. We incorporate the effects of land use change on crop water use, and the opportunity costs of using scarce resources for biofuels instead of other crops. We find that biofuel production reduces poverty and food insecurity by raising household incomes. Irrigated outgrower schemes, rather than estate farms, lead to better economic outcomes, fewer emissions, and similar water requirements. Nevertheless, to gain access to European markets, Malawi would need to reduce emissions from ethanol plants. We find that biofuels’ economic and emissions outcomes are generally preferable to tobacco or soybeans. We conclude that the sustainability criteria encourage more sustainable biofuel production in countries like Malawi, but are perhaps overly biased against biofuels since other export crops raise similar concerns about food security and environmental impacts.

Variable returns to fertiliser use and the geography of poverty: Experimental and simulation evidence from Malawi

Can sub-Saharan Africa feed itself?

Although global food demand is expected to increase 60% by 2050 compared with 2005/2007, the rise will be much greater in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Indeed, SSA is the region at greatest food security risk because by 2050 its population will increase 2.5-fold and demand for cereals approximately triple, whereas current levels of cereal consumption already depend on substantial imports. At issue is whether SSA can meet this vast increase in cereal demand without greater reliance on cereal imports or major expansion of agricultural area and associated biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. Recent studies indicate that the global increase in food demand by 2050 can be met through closing the gap between current farm yield and yield potential on existing cropland. Here, however, we estimate it will not be feasible to meet future SSA cereal demand on existing production area by yield gap closure alone. Our agronomically robust yield gap analysis for 10 countries in SSA using location-specific data and a spatial upscaling approach reveals that, in addition to yield gap closure, other more complex and uncertain components of intensification are also needed, i.e., increasing cropping intensity (the number of crops grown per 12 mo on the same field) and sustainable expansion of irrigated production area. If intensification is not successful and massive cropland land expansion is to be avoided, SSA will depend much more on imports of cereals than it does today.

Responding to risk: Circumcision, information, and HIV prevention

Medical male circumcision: How does price affect the risk-profile of take-up?

Organisational health and performance: an empirical assessment of smallholder producer organisations in Africa

We use recent data from 253 smallholder producer organisations (SPOs) in Ethiopia, Malawi and Senegal, factor and regression analysis to define organisational health, understand its determinants and relate health to performance. We find that latent health evolves according to a life cycle and that start up incentives and design rules are important determinants of an organisation’s progression through this life cycle. Health, in turn, is found to explain SPO performance measured in terms of profits. Healthier and more profitable SPOs are those with an economic justification at establishment, those initially pursuing defensive objectives and those SPOs that have put in place a strategy for capital formation. More educated presidents contribute to the health of an SPO but it is also shown that when the president of the SPO is female, profits are lower while the organisation is not healthier.

Opportunities for improved promotion of ecosystem services in agriculture under the Water-Energy-Food Nexus

In this study, we focus on water quality as a vehicle to illustrate the role that the water, energy, and food (WEF) Nexus perspective may have in promoting ecosystem services in agriculture. The mediation of water quality by terrestrial systems is a key ecosystem service for a range of actors (municipalities, fishers, industries, and energy providers) and is reshaped radically by agricultural activity. To address these impacts, many programs exist to promote improved land-use practices in agriculture; however, where these practices incur a cost or other burden to the farmer, adoption can be low unless some form of incentive is provided (as in a payment for ecosystem services (PES) program). Provision of such incentives can be a challenge to sustain in the long term, if there is not a clear beneficiary or other actor willing to provide them. Successfully closing the loop between impacts and incentives often requires identifying a measurable and valuable service with a clear central beneficiary that is impacted by the summative effects of the diffuse agricultural practices across the landscape. Drawing on cases from our own research, we demonstrate how the WEF Nexus perspective—by integrating non-point-source agricultural problems under well-defined energy issues—can highlight central beneficiaries of improved agricultural practice, where none may have existed otherwise.

Heterogeneous preferences and the effects of incentives in promoting conservation agriculture in Malawi

Does a ban on informal health providers save lives?: Evidence from Malawi

Geospatial analysis of condom availability and accessibility in urban Malawi

Prevalence of HIV in sub-Saharan African countries persists at alarming rates. There are currently four promoted methods to prevent HIV infection: adherence to antiretroviral therapy, male circumcision, pre-exposure prophylaxis and use of condoms. This study aimed to assess the availability and accessibility of one of the prevention efforts, condoms, in Kawale, Lilongwe, Malawi. A total of 220 potential condom-selling establishments were surveyed in 2012. Data were collected with store owners or staff and locations were geocoded to assess store density. Descriptive analyses were conducted. Of those audited, 96 stores sold condoms, 13 of which distributed free condoms. The stores were most often small shops and located in markets or trading centres. Condoms were most often found at the back of the store in an open space. There were approximately 1.2 stores per ¼ mile; 44% of the businesses in the study region carried condoms. This one method of prevention exhibited multiple barriers in this region: few stores sold condoms, high costs, condom locations within stores and limited availability. The limited accessibility is likely to influence social norms surrounding condom use. Future research should incorporate assessing norms and addressing barriers to uptake of HIV prevention efforts.

Who talks to whom in Malawi's agricultural research information network?

The economywide impacts and risks of Malawi’s farm input subsidy program

We estimate the impact of Malawi's Farm Input Subsidy Program using an economy‐wide approach. This approach yields benefit‐cost ratios about 60% higher than existing partial equilibrium studies, a result of our accounting for indirect benefits. Fertilizer response rates remain the determining parameter for benefit‐cost ratio levels. Even with lower‐end response rates, the program is pro‐poor and generates double‐dividends through higher and more drought‐resilient yields. Overall, for macro‐economically significant programs, our approach strongly complements survey‐based evaluations. For Malawi, our results buttress arguments for a focus on program improvements.

Association between irrigated farming and improved nutrition in farm households in Malawi

Measuring the forest and income impacts of forest user group participation under Malawi's Forest Co-management Program

Maize systems under climate change in sub-Saharan Africa: Potential impacts on production and food security

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the biophysical and socioeconomic impacts of climate change on maize production and food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using adapted improved maize varieties and well-calibrated and validated bioeconomic models. Design/methodology/approach: Using the past climate (1950-2000) as a baseline, the study estimated the biophysical impacts of climate change in 2050 (2040-2069) and 2080 (2070-2099) under the A1B emission scenario and three nitrogen levels, and the socioeconomic impacts in 2050. Findings: Climate change will affect maize yields across SSA in 2050 and 2080, and the extent of the impact at a given period will vary considerably between input levels, regions and maize mega environments (MMEs). Greater relative yield reductions may occur under medium and high-input intensification than under low intensification, in Western and Southern Africa than in Eastern and Central Africa and in lowland and dry mid-altitude than in highland and wet mid-altitude MMEs. Climate change may worsen food insecurity in SSA in 2050 through its negative impact on maize consumption and reduction in daily calorie intake. However, international trade has the potential to offset some of the negative impacts. Originality/value: The study calibrated and applied bioeconomic models to estimate the biophysical and socioeconomic impact of climate change on maize production at fine resolution. The results could be used as a baseline to evaluate measures that will be applied to adapt maize to the future climate in SSA.

Decentralised beneficiary targeting in large-scale development programmes: Insights from the Malawi farm input subsidy programme

Climate change and economic growth prospects for Malawi: An uncertainty approach

Malawi confronts a growth and development imperative that it must meet in a context characterised by rising temperatures and deep uncertainty about trends in precipitation. This article evaluates the potential implications of climate change for overall growth and development prospects in Malawi. We combine climate, biophysical and economic models to develop a structural analysis focused on three primary impact channels: agriculture, road infrastructure and hydropower generation. We account explicitly for the uncertainty in climate forecasts by exploiting the best available information on the likely distribution of climate outcomes. We find that climate change is unlikely to substantially slow overall economic growth over the next couple of decades. However, assuming that global emissions remain effectively unconstrained, climate change implications become more pronounced over time. Reduced agricultural yields and increased damage to road infrastructure due to increased frequency and intensity of extreme events are the principal impact channels. Owing to the potential for positive impacts in the near term, the net present value of climate impacts from 2007 to 2050 (using a 5% discount rate) can be positive or negative with an average loss of about USD 610 million. The main implication of our findings is that Malawian policy makers should look to exploit the coming decade or two as these represent a window of opportunity to develop smart and forward looking adaptation policies. As many of these policies take time to develop, implement, and then execute, there is little cause for complacency.

Resettlement for food security’s sake: Insights from a Malawi land reform project

Perceptions of male circumcision among married couples in rural Malawi

Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) is being suggested as an essential HIV prevention strategy in high-prevalence areas. These analyses reflect data collected from 360 married couples, 50% of which included a circumcised husband and the other 50% uncircumcised, in rural Malawi. Regardless of their circumcision status, men were more likely to perceive that being circumcised was less painful than having a tooth pulled, giving birth, and having malaria. Men reported having the same sexual pleasure regardless of the circumcision status, while women were 2.0 times more likely to report greater sexual pleasure with a circumcised partner. Participants identified the medical benefits of VMMC and highlighted the potential personal benefits of VMMC. As VMMC has become a promising method of HIV prevention, this study revealed opportunities for intervention development to increase rates of VMMC among men.

Relative preferences for soil conservation incentives among smallholder farmers: Evidence from Malawi

This paper uses framed choice experiments to examine the preferences of smallholder farmers in Malawi regarding alternative policy‐based incentives to adopt conservation practices that reduce soil erosion and increase yields. The policy incentives offered in the choice experiments included an ideal index‐based crop insurance contract, an index insurance contract with basis risk, cash payments, and fertilizer subsidies. Prior to implementing the choice experiments, the farmers participated in a workshop utilizing small group‐based dynamic learning games that demonstrated how index‐based crop insurance contracts function. The choice experiment results indicate that most farmers preferred cash payments to index insurance contracts, even when the insurance contracts offered substantially higher expected returns. Further, more risk averse farmers were more likely to prefer cash payments than less risk averse and risk loving farmers.