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Impacts of the war in Ukraine on Malawi
Although geographically distant, there are multiple channels through which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can affect the lives of Malawians. Before the invasion, Russia’s and Ukraine’s exports accounted for about 12% of total calories (Glauber and Laborde, 2022) traded in the world, and the two countries were among the top five global exporters for many important cereals and oilseeds, including wheat, barley, sunflowers and maize (Figure 1). Ukraine is also an important source of sunflower seed oil, supplying about 50% of the global market. These exports have now largely seized as a result of war-related disruptions to production and logistics as well as economic sanctions on Russia and Belarus, its ally. This shock reduction of supply is driving up food commodity prices worldwide and will continue to do so while the current situation persists. The ongoing fighting has already disrupted the planting of barley and will soon disrupt the planting of maize, wheat, and oilseeds. The choke on global supply will thus continue for months (if not years) to come.
Pricing farmer contributions under AIP
The market price of fertilizer in Malawi has, in nominal terms, more than tripled compared to two years ago. The price hikes were both unexpected and beyond the control of the government, linked to global events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This changed global reality reinforces the need to rethink the way in which Malawi approaches its agricultural input subsidies. A number of options for reforming the AIP have been outlined in recent policy work, but all have medium to long term implementation horizons. We will not repeat these here and instead refer the interested reader to Chadza and Duchoslav (2022), De Weerdt and Duchoslav (2022), and Nyondo et al....
Malawi: Impacts of the Ukraine and global crises on poverty and food security
Global food, fuel, and fertilizer prices have risen rapidly in recent months, driven in large part by the fallout from the ongoing war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia. Other factors, such as export bans, have also contributed to rising prices. Palm oil and wheat prices increased by 56 and 100 percent in real terms, respectively, between June 2021 and April 2022, with most of the in-crease occurring since February (Figure 1).
IFPRI key facts series: Key facts sheet on poverty
This is the fourth in a series of Key Facts sheets that IFPRI is producing based on the Integrated Household Surveys (IHS). The purpose of the series is to present data relevant to key policy issues on agriculture, food systems, and development topics in Malawi. Other Key Facts Sheets are available on our website at massp.ifpri.info.
Malawi’s agrifood system structure and drivers of transformation
Malawi experienced modest growth from 2009 to 2019, with average annual GDP growth of 4.7 percent. The global COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant slowdown in 2020 and 2021, and the economy has not yet rebounded to pre-pandemic levels (World Bank 2023). At the time of writing, GDP is projected to grow at 2.4 percent in 2023, which in combination with population growth of 2.7 percent would result in a 0.3 percent contraction of GDP per capita (IMF 2023). At the core of the failure to resume pre-pandemic economic growth rates are a worsening debt crisis, a balance of payment crisis, an acute shortage of foreign exchange reserves, and several external shocks (World Bank 2022). The latter include the effects of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the devastation caused by cyclone Freddy in 2023 (De Weerdt and Duchoslav 2022; Diao et al. 2022).
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 nd no evidence that this strategy was successful at increasing the vote of ruling party candidates in subsequent elections.
Fertilizer subsidies in Malawi: From past to present
Malawi has been at the center of the debate on agricultural input subsidies in Africa ever since it significantly expanded its fertilizer subsidy program about two decades ago. When it did so, Malawi was a trailblazer, receiving international attention for seemingly leveraging the subsidy program to move the country from a situation characterized by food deficits and widespread hunger to crop production surpluses. In this paper we trace the history of Malawi’s subsidy program over the past 70 years, describing how the country arrived at that watershed moment earlier this century and how the subsidy program has developed since. We show how donor support for the program has wavered and how e...
Self-targeted fertilizer subsidies
If Malawi’s fertilizer subsidy program aims to increase food security in the country, it should strive to target the most productive farmers. Subsidy levels can be set to self-target this group of farmers. This would maximize output achieved with subsidized fertilizer and eliminate the need for costly and error-prone top-down targeting. Maximizing the productive capacity of the AIP In a previous policy note, we argued that by setting the farmer contribution to fertilizer subsidized under that Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) so that farmer demand matches what the program can supply, the government can maximize the total amount of fertilizer available for distribution under the program (Banda et al.,2022). In this note, we argue that a second advantage of this pricing strategy is that it ensures that each subsidized bag of fertilizer has the largest possible yield response, thus maximizing the additional amount of food produced through the program.
Mitigating the impact of El Niño on hunger in Malawi
El Niño is a phase in an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every 2 to 7 years and typically lasts between 9 months and 2 years. El Niño affects the global weather patterns, resulting in above-average precipitation in some places and droughts in others. Malawi and its neighbors typically experience drier than usual weather during El Niño, which often leads to poor growing conditions and below-average harvests.
Primary agricultural cooperatives in Malawi: Structure, conduct, and performance
Primary agricultural cooperatives in Malawi, in contrast to other farmer-level organizations, have legal status and can own assets, borrow money for their operations, and sign contracts, making it easier for them to do business for the profit of their members. Conceptually, such cooperatives enable their member-farmers to achieve economies of scale for their commercial activities. By joining together in a cooperative, members can obtain commercial inputs at lower prices closer to wholesale prices than if they purchased the inputs as individuals. In selling their output, by aggregating their crops and other products into larger lots that the cooperative then negotiates to sell on their behalf...
