Up until last year, the decade-long Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) - a national programme designed to improve resource poor smallholder farmers’ access to improved agricultural inputs- had remained largely unchanged despite some criticisms about areas for improvement. A set of reforms finally came in 2016/17. A new policy brief published by the UK Aid […]
MaSSP studies on FISP and growth-poverty linkages published as UNU-WIDER Working Papers
Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) has dominated agriculture and food security policy debates since its inception in 2005/06. Yet, after eight years of intensive research and program evaluation, opinion about FISP’s impact and its overall desirability remains divided. This reflects the fact that FISP is partly motivated by political reasons; that the socio-economic criteria […]
Are fertilizer subsidies worth it?
IFPRI's Insights Magazine recently published an article about fertilizer subsidies in Africa, using Malawi as an example and citing MaSSP research on the topic. The authors note that many African governments subsidize fertilizers and ask, "Are subsidies worth it?". The complete re-posted article appears below. ************************************ It was called Malawi’s miracle. In 2005, in the […]
FISP Symposium Proceedings
The National Farm Input Subsidy Programme Symposium, held on July 14-15, 2014 at the Bingu International Conference Centre, asked critical questions about the impact and future of the FISP. The full proceedings as well as a summary of the policy implications from this productive debate are now published here on the MaSSP website. We hope the outcomes of this […]
National FISP Symposium: Impact and what next?
The National Farm Input Subsidy Programme Symposium, ‘Eight years of FISP – Impact and what next?’, was held on July 14-15, 2014 at the Bingu International Conference Centre. Local and global experts came together to review the state of evidence on the impacts of the program, debate the core objectives and main implementation challenges, and discuss the […]
