Malawi’s many smallholders rely heavily on rainfed, low-input subsistence farming to meet their food needs. Yet for most rural Malawian households, subsistence agriculture cannot consistently produce enough food to ward off hunger.
This report is a critical review of two of the principal agricultural laws in Malawi, the Special Crops Act and the Agriculture (General Purposes) Act. Both are frequently used to justify interventions by government in agricultural marketing and trade activities.
Over the past ten years, there have been several initiatives in Malawi to strengthen the processes through which the design and content of policies, strategies, and programs in the agriculture sector that affect the nation’s food security are established.
Although the Malawian food supply is shaped largely by trends in smallholder food crop production, Malawi’s decades-long focus on improving smallholder productivity has only moderately improved food security and nutrition outcomes.
This report seeks to support national decisionmakers, as well as their international development partners, in acquiring information and applying methods for understanding the likely effects of a global food crisis on their country and acting to alleviate the risks and exploit the opportunities brought about by such crises.
