This document describes a two-level agricultural zonation scheme to guide agricultural planning in Malawi. This scheme combines broad agricultural development domains – based upon a districtlevel analysis of agro-ecological potential; physical access to market; and population density – with an extensive set of detailed, more locally relevant crop suitability maps to determine where agricultural development investments might best be located within a relevant development domain.

In this Policy Note, we examine both household and spatial factors that may drive participation by smallholder farming households in commercial value chains for pulses, legume crops that are primarily harvested for their dry seed. Here the focus is on value chains for common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan). Bean and pigeonpea are particularly important secondary crops within many smallholder farming systems in Malawi, while cowpea is less common. All are commonly grown as intercrops in smallholder farming systems, primarily with maize.

By increasing their production for the market and realizing greater incomes, smallholder farming households can significantly accelerate local agricultural and rural economic development. The increased income of these commercially oriented farmers increases their demand for the goods, services, and labor that can be supplied by other, often poorer, households in their community, expanding local non-farm employment opportunities and raising incomes for those other households. Appropriately targeting agricultural development efforts towards commercially oriented farming households has important second-round economic development benefits in their communities, effects which cannot be achieved without properly identifying such households. In this Policy Note, we examine both household and spatial factors that may drive participation by smallholder farming households in oilseed value chains, focusing on those for groundnut, soyabean, and sunflower. Groundnut has been an important secondary crop within many smallholder farming systems across Malawi for several generations, used both for own consumption within the household and for sale. Soyabean and sunflower are more recent introductions and are primarily grown for commercial sale by both smallholders and commercial farmers. Annual production and yield levels for these crops in recent years are shown in Table 1.

This study examines the adoption of sustainable agricultural intensification practices— particularly cereal-legume intercropping—by smallholder farming households in Malawi. The focus of the study is on how spatial variation in key factors related to agricultural production and marketing influences farming households’ decision-making processes under risk. Separate analyses are done for six distinct agroecological zones in Malawi to evaluate how resource and market constraints affect farming households’ decisions to employ intercropping practices on their cropland and how the variations in these constraints have differing impacts on adoption of intercropping across different regions. This study provides valuable insights into the complexities of smallholder farming choices in diverse geographic contexts.

This study has analyzed the factors affecting common bean production and marketing decisions by agricultural households in Malawi. The empirical results from applying the triple hurdle model to the IHS3 data demonstrate that different sets of factors affect smallholder farmers’ production, market participation and the intensity of participation decisions with respect to common beans. The location of the farmer, ownership of a radio, receipt of production extension services and FISP benefits, distance to main road and distance to the nearest market affected the agricultural household’s decision to produce common beans.

The primary goal of the study is to investigate the potential to expand oilseeds, specifically soybeans,as an alternative commercialcrop to tobacco among Malawian farmers. A principal motivation for undertaking the study at the microeconomic level is to determine, in a theoretically consistent fashion, the type of policy and economic environment under which farmers begin to shift more of their scarce resources to oilseed production.The study aims to provide recommendations to a growing demand among policy makers and development partners for a greater diversification of exports and crop production systems of the majority smallholder farmers in Malawi. Using representative farm models, the study examinesthe potential for expanding production of soybeans among typical smallholder farming systems in Malawi. The results will help guide future policies and investments targeted at promoting greater crop diversification and incomes, in order to reduce poverty and malnutrition in Malawi. Given the amount of labor and land resources allocated to maize production for food security purposes, we also consider the policy challenges that emerge for crop diversification as a result

By directing increasing shares of their farm production to the market and, thereby, realizing greater incomes, farming households can accelerate local rural economic development. In this study, we examine household and spatial factors that may drive smallholder farming households in Malawi to produce and sell maize, groundnut, and soyabean. Two cross-sectional analyses are done using household level data from rounds of the Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS). First, using data for farming households from the fifth IHS (2019/20) in a series of weighted logistical models, we examine which of a set of household and spatial level factors are associated with a household producing each of the three crops. For maize and groundnut, we extend the analysis by similarly identifying the factors associated with whether a producing household sells any of their maize or groundnut, and if, they do, whether they sell more than half of their harvest. The second analysis consists of replicating the logistical models for production and sales using household data from the fourth IHS (2016/17) and comparing those results to the results obtained from the fifth IHS. This is done to identify whether any drivers of the production and sale of the three crops are changing over time. Overall, only a few factors are consistently associated with a farming household choosing to produce a particular crop or to sell part of their production of the crop. We also see limited changes between 2016/17 and 2019/20 in the drivers of the production and sale of these crops. However, the strength of the positive associations between landholding size and the commercial production of the three crops intensified between the two surveys. This suggests that as landholdings become smaller with continuing population growth, commercial production will increasingly be limited to those households with the largest landholdings. Government and other stakeholders in rural economic development can consider the evidence from these analyses in developing strategies to foster greater diversity in employment in rural economies across Malawi away from agriculture, while nonetheless promoting increased production by those smallholders in a position to participate profitably in the value chains for these crops.

On top of a decade of exacerbated disaster loss, exceptional global heat, retreating ice and rising sea levels, humanity and our food security face a range of new and unprecedented hazards, such as megafires, extreme weather events, desert locust swarms of magnitudes previously unseen, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Agriculture underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people – most of them in low-income developing countries – and remains a key driver of development. At no other point in history has agriculture been faced with such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks, interacting in a hyperconnected world and a precipitously changing landscape. And agriculture continues to absorb a disproportionate share of the damage and loss wrought by disasters. Their growing frequency and intensity, along with the systemic nature of risk, are upending people’s lives, devastating livelihoods, and jeopardizing our entire food system. This report makes a powerful case for investing in resilience and disaster risk reduction – especially data gathering and analysis for evidence informed action – to ensure agriculture’s crucial role in achieving the future we want.

The State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture is FAO's first flagship publication on the global status of land and water resources. It is an 'advocacy' report, to be published every three to five years, and targeted at senior level decision makers in agriculture as well as in other sectors. SOLAW is aimed at sensitizing its target audience on the status of land resources at global and regional levels and FAO's viewpoint on appropriate recommendations for policy formulation. SOLAW focuses on these key dimensions of analysis: (i) quantity, quality of land and water resources, (ii) the rate of use and sustainable management of these resources in the context of relevant socio-economic driving factors and concerns, including food security and poverty, and climate change. This is the first time that a global, baseline status report on land and water resources has been made. It is based on several global spatial databases (e.g. land suitability for agriculture, land use and management, land and water degradation and depletion) for which FAO is the world-recognized data source. Topical and emerging issues on land and water are dealt with in an integrated rather than sectoral manner. The implications of the status and trends are used to advocate remedial interventions which are tailored to major farming systems within different geographic regions.