Malawi

This policy note explores key findings from a farm-level analysis of smallholders’ crop choice under different policy and risk scenarios. Smallholder farmers planting decisions are examined for five major crops – maize, tobacco, common bean, groundnut, and soyabean – using a farm-level risk model. The policy scenarios include: (a) reducing the volatility of farm gate soyabean prices by 25 percent; and (b) introducing a loan package for soyabean inputs. These simulations were conducted both without and in the presence of a loan package for tobacco inputs. »

This note by GFRAS argues that it is important to include men in nutrition initiatives to turn around food discrimination. Women may learn a lot from courses on good nutrition, but excluding men means that women may not be able to act on their improved knowledge. Men may feel angry because their own nutritional needs are ignored. »

This report by IDS presents the results of a desk-based study to assess the available research evidence in relation to African young people’s engagement with agriculture, and to analyse how this evidence is reflected in current European Union (EU) policy and programming in Malawi, Ethiopia and Kenya, three of the 89 countries in which Alliance2015 members work. »

This paper by the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACBIO) reviews the farm input subsidy programmes (FISPs) within countries belonging to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), to ascertain whether input subsidies have benefited small-scale farmers, have increased food security at the household and national levels, and have improved the incomes of small-scale farmers. »

This book provides empirical evidence and conceptual explorations of the gendered dimensions of food security. It investigates how food security and gender inequity are conceptualized within interventions, it assesses the impacts and outcomes of gender-responsive programs on food security and gender equity, and addresses diverse approaches to gender research and practice that range from descriptive and analytical to strategic and transformative. »

This book by UNU-WIDER comprehensively evaluates trends in living conditions in 16 major sub-Saharan African countries, corresponding to nearly 75% of the total population. An important message from ten of the countries they looked at is that there are potentially high returns to policies that take agriculture seriously. Countries that place a particular emphasis on upgrading the capabilities of small-scale farmers are more likely to achieve broad-based development objectives. »