Dissertations / Theses: 'Food security – Malawi'

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Javdani, Marie S. "Stop the Bleeding, Heal the Wound: The Role of Fertilizer Subsidies in Food Security, Zomba District, Malawi." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/10060.

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xiv, 126 p. : ill., map. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
The government of Malawi is being lauded internationally for having ostensibly eliminated hunger within its borders through a subsidy that makes available chemical fertilizers to smallholder farmers. Development scholarship and policy have recently turned toward promoting a "new" Green Revolution in Africa for the establishment of food security and the advancement of economic development. Many view the increased use of chemical fertilizer in Malawian agriculture and the resultant rise in maize yieldsdescribed by such publications as the New York Times as the "Malawi Mirac1e"-as evidence that the prescribed NGR is indeed a recipe for success. This thesis places the subsidy in its historical and theoretical framework and discusses the extent to which production-end strategies accomplish the goals of food security. Also discussed are nonproduction measures that are essential to creating a reliable and accessible food system.
Committee in Charge: Peter A. Walker, Chair; Derrick L. Hindery

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Bezner, Kerr Rachel. "Food security, intra-household dynamics and manure use on resource-poor farms in northern Malawi." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ35868.pdf.

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Chiroro, Canford. "An evaluation of the determinants of resilience to drought in Malawi." Thesis, University of Dundee, 2013. https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/a1ff02f2-1ced-4769-8b80-b31815f75e89.

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Building resilient communities has emerged as a dominant agenda in the policy arena and in academia in the wake of recent disasters. However, there is a lack of clarity on the specific interventions required to build resilience. Current challenges associated with resilience include ambiguity, unclear measures, and problematized applicability. This thesis evaluates the determinants of resilience to drought in community food systems as a basis for contributing towards a more advanced understanding of resilience. A schematic model linking the key concepts associated with resilience was developed on the basis of literature review. This model was subsequently applied to a sample of 195 farm households, 16 community meetings and about 45 interviews with key informants across eight villages in Nsanje and Mzimba districts in Malawi interviewed between October 2010 and February 2011. Analysis at household level focused on exploring the causes of vulnerability, the role of livelihood assets and institutions in shaping coping and adaptation, and the implication of these to the meaning of resilience. The thesis concluded that vulnerability to food insecurity was produced by an interaction of slow and fast moving factors and processes, some of which were highly persistent. Access to livelihood assets and institutions increased short term coping and adaptive capacity but did not effectively predict resilience given unknowns regarding asset availability and liquidity over the long term. Different socio-economic groups associated different meanings with the concept of resilience, and in some cases, one group achieved ‘resilience’ at the expense of the larger community. In integrating vulnerability into resilience thinking, the analysis suggested that resilience could be analysed as existing in desirable and undesirable forms. Undesirable resiliencies reinforced the vulnerable state. By addressing the factors that sustain vulnerability, response capacity could be enhanced. This being the case, advanced by this thesis is a shift from focusing on resilience as a utopian goal, in favour of practices that enhance response capacity and letting communities learn for themselves and transform their value sets to ones that are more likely to ensure coping with adverse conditions. The study concludes that the concept of resilience in its current form is of more value as an organising framework within the re-engineering of food, agricultural, development and disaster management policy can be undertaken.

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Sirrine, Dorothy. "Agroforestry, soils, and food security in southern Malawi : interdisciplinary on-farm research linking sustainability and livelihoods /." Diss., Digital Dissertations Database. Restricted to UC campuses, 2008. http://uclibs.org/PID/11984.

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Conrad, Abigail. "We are farmers| Agriculture, food security, and adaptive capacity among permaculture and conventional farmers in central Malawi." Thesis, American University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3668010.

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Small-scale family farming to meet household food and livelihood needs is a central activity for most households in rural Malawi. Food insecurity and malnutrition are persistent problems for these farmers. Conventional agriculture techniques and maize production are the focus of most household farming, government agriculture policy, and agricultural development programs. However, conventional agriculture and maize production are expensive and unreliable in the short term, and environmentally and financially unsustainable in the long term. As an alternative, some NGOs and farmers in Malawi use permaculture, an agroecology design and low external input agriculture system. Previous research and NGO reports have pointed to benefits and constraints to permaculture adoption in Malawi.

For this dissertation, I investigated the relationships between agriculture practices and food security among smallholder conventional and permaculture farmers in Lilongwe Rural District in Malawi in partnership with two implementing permaculture organizations. Building on political ecology, the anthropology of food, structural violence, and permaculture literatures, I analyzed the impact of permaculture practice on farmers' agricultural practices, diet, and food security. This analysis showed that farmers who used permaculture experienced agricultural, environmental, livelihood, and food and nutrition security benefits in comparison to farmers who solely used conventional agriculture. These benefits were important given the context of structural violence in which farmers face systemic risk to impoverishment, food insecurity, and malnutrition. However, the benefits of permaculture use were constrained by the broader agro-food system, resource entitlements, and other structural constraints. The findings of this study add to our understanding of how smallholder farmers in Malawi can maneuver within the broader agro-food system, while pointing to potential strategies that farmers and organizations can use to try to address existing constraints.

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Elzvik, Nyström Klara. "Rainfall Variation and Food Security in Malawi : A Panel Data Study with Valuable Insights from the Field." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Nationalekonomiska institutionen, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-376800.

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This study addresses the question of how climate variability, in terms of seasonal rainfall variation, might affect food security in Malawi. It hypothesizes that seasonal rainfall variation could cause food insecurity and that the consequences of weather hazards possibly differ within the country. An additional aim of this study is therefore to map local resilience in Malawi to estimate the adaptation ability by analyzing two subsamples. The hypothesis is tested by using a two-way fixed effect regression analysis and panel data for 28 districts in Malawi covering the years 2000, 2004, 2010 and 2015. This study finds no statistically significant effect of seasonal rainfall variation on children’s health for the examined years.

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Musonzo, Charity Priscilla. "Malawi Farm Input Subsidy Programme - impact on income of smallholder farmers." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29044.

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Agriculture is the single most important sector in Malawi due to its contribution to the economy ranging from employment creation, contribution to GDP growth to source of foreign exchange earnings. These significant contributions have necessitated the Government of Malawi to develop strategies and policies such as the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP), whose main aim is to increase household incomes and reduce food insecurity and ultimately reduce poverty. It is nine years since the introduction of FISP but its results remain mixed. Using the 2009/10 Integrated Household Survey Phase 3 (IHS3) dataset, a logistic regression in a multivariate data analysis approach was used to investigate the impact of FISP on income levels and food security of rural smallholder farmers in Malawi. The analysis showed that about 82 percent of smallholder farmers live in rural areas, about 75 percent of them were males, 71 percent were married, 70 percent did not go to school and 69 percent benefited from FISP. In farming, 68 percent of these smallholder farmers had less than 1 hectare of farms, 70 percent of them had labour force of less than 5 people, 51 percent of them harvest less than 5 bags of 50kgs of maize of which 92 percent sell most of their harvested maize and 89 percent of them receive less than MK5, 000 from sales. In addition, about 99 percent of these smallholder farmers were food insecure as they save less than 1 bag of 50kgs after harvest. Only 1 percent of these smallholder farmers receive remittances and 21 percent had other income generating activities (IGAs). Demographic and socio-economic factors have no impact on these farmers capability to increase income levels and enhance their food security. There is also no statistically significant difference between FISP beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in terms of capabilities of increasing incomes and enhancing food security. It is, therefore, concluded that FISP had no significant impact on the abilities of these smallholder farmers to increase their incomes and enhancing their food security. Hence, FISP did not prove to be the best food security and poverty alleviation tool in Malawi.

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Chizimba, Martha. "Sustainable agricultural development in the Malawian smallholder agricultural sector: a case of Lilongwe District." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/365.

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Even though agriculture is the backbone of Malawi‟s economy, food insecurity has remained a continuous threat among the poor. Until the 1980s, Malawi had been achieving national food security through an extensive system of agricultural inputs and marketing subsidies. However, these subsidies were removed and at the same time, the agricultural credit system collapsed. Consequently, agricultural productivity in Malawi remained low, poverty remained pervasive and food insecurity remains a main constraint to national and household food security. Therefore, the success of the agricultural sector in Malawi is very critical for raising the living standards and for food self-sufficiency. In this vein, the study hypothesized that Malawi can only achieve sustainable agricultural development if its agricultural policies are focused towards intensifying agricultural productivity through active participation of smallholder farmers. The major aim of the study was to contribute towards an improved understanding of how the issues of sustainable agricultural development have been addressed in Malawi and how they have influenced the lives of smallholder farmers. The analysis of the results revealed that even though what was implemented in the 1970s to early 1980s was financially unsustainable, but it provided some solutions to the fundamental challenges of smallholder development in Malawi. However, the liberalisations eroded whatever economic benefits achieved then. Never the less, the re-introduction of the agricultural input subsidies restored back the means of production leading to significant transformation of the country from a net importer to a net food exporter. On the other hand, although the agricultural input subsidy programme is being commended for having helped in achieving food security, the study revealed that the programme requires complementary services of credit, extension, research and market to support it. This will provide an exit strategy, which can enable the producers to sell their produce at higher prices sufficient enough for them to afford agricultural inputs without subsidies.

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Quinion, Ann Farrington. "Contribution of soil fertility replenishment agroforestry technologies to the livelihoods and food security of smallholder farmers in central and southern Malawi." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/1983.

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Prowse, Martin. "Burley tobacco, food security and vulnerability : the changing nature of rural livelihoods in the central region of Malawi." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2007. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.579551.

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Schünemann, Franziska [Verfasser]. "Economy-Wide Policy Modeling of the Food-Energy-Water Nexus : Identifying Synergies and Tradeoffs on Food, Energy, and Water Security in Malawi / Franziska Schünemann." Frankfurt a.M. : Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2018. http://d-nb.info/1173657274/34.

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McNulty, Emily [Verfasser], and Manfred [Akademischer Betreuer] Zeller. "Microeconomic analysis of policies addressing food security, water and energy trade-offs in Malawi / Emily McNulty ; Betreuer: Manfred Zeller." Hohenheim : Kommunikations-, Informations- und Medienzentrum der Universität Hohenheim, 2018. http://d-nb.info/1158659660/34.

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Chim'gonda-Nkhoma, Jerome John. "Understanding social power influence on participation and communication : cases of food security, sexual and reproductive health interventions in Malawi." Thesis, University of Reading, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.658874.

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Devolution of development planning and implementation functions from the central government to local authorities and ordinary citizens in Malawi holds the promise to achieve popular participation in communication for food security, sexual and reproductive health interventions. However, continued use of government bureaucratic and traditional power structures poses challenges to implementation of participatory communication strategies in development. A study was conducted with aims of examining how social power influences communication processes in food security, sexual and reproductive health interventions and to explore whether social power determines popular participation in the communication activities and processes in Dedza and Kasungu districts in Malawi from September, 2011 to August, 2012. The study employed a qualitative research design and case study approach to achieve its aims. 375 participants (219 male, 156 female) were recruited for the study using purposive and snowball sampling procedures. Data were collected using focus group discussions, key informant interviews, social mapping exercises, direct observations, and a questionnaire survey. The data were analysed using the N'Vivo 9 software, themes were constructed from the software outputs and, descriptive statistics for the survey. The study found that different forms of social power determine decision-making, planning, and implementation of communication activities and processes in food security, sexual and reproductive health interventions. Findings of the study showed that powerful social actors control and dominate decision-making and facilitation of communication activities and processes. The study demonstrated that men, women and youth without positions of power do not have space to influence decisions and facilitate the activities and processes. The study established that social power suppresses participation of women more than it does on men in both interventions. The findings showed that culture, development stereotypes, and attitude reinforce domination tendencies of powerful actors, while the same factors influence powerless social actors to support their own subjugation. The study concludes that powerful social actors control participation in communication activities and processes because of culture, attitude, and stereotypes. The study demonstrated that domination tendencies happen under the prevailing devolution policies suggesting elite capture of the decentralisation process. The findings intimate policy failure for decentralisation, agriculture extension, sexual and reproductive health outreach as the respective policies have not helped to achieve popular participation in the study locations and interventions. The study recommends policy reorientation to address factors that motivate domination by powerful social actors and supress popular participation.

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Sharp, Kelly Susan. "Voluntary resettlement for improved livelihoods? : examining food security, nutrition, and informed consent amongst land reform participants in southern Malawi." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/56245.

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Land scarcity and food insecurity are critical concerns for billions of individuals worldwide; voluntary resettlement, as a type of land reform, offers governments and aid agencies a controversial approach to address these concerns. This thesis examines the case of a US$38-million World Bank-funded voluntary resettlement scheme in southern Malawi known as the Community Based Rural Land Development Project, through which 15,000 low-income farming households moved internally from densely populated areas to underutilized plantations between 2004 and 2011. The project and its explicit goals (to increase participant income and agricultural productivity) have been the subject of several studies, but the wider range of indirect outcomes and possible unintended consequences are lesser known, which this thesis works to address. The first analytic chapter assesses the extent to which the project was ‘voluntary’, and considers the real versus perceived land tenure claims established by the programme. To enhance understanding this analysis, this chapter also considers factors influencing household participation and withdrawal in the resettlement. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of surveys (N=203), focus group discussions (N=5) and interviews (N=20) suggest that participants did not have a clear understanding of the project conditions, and that they perceived their new ownership rights to be more secure and individual than they were by law. Additionally, attrition rates were analyzed: despite numerous influences factoring into participant decisions to withdraw and return ‘home’, availability of land in the district of origin and access to infrastructure in the district of resettlement played significant roles. The second analytic chapter assesses the effectiveness of voluntary resettlement in improving food security, including its effects on dietary diversity. Regressions and statistical analyses of Dietary Diversity Scores indicate that participants had statistically significant lower levels of food security and dietary diversity than former and non-beneficiaries, possibly due to a lack of infrastructure and access to markets. These findings highlight the importance of participatory holistic planning for voluntary resettlement, particularly to ensure participant understanding of future living conditions, and ultimately challenge the utility of voluntary resettlement as a policy tool to improve the well-being of subsistence farmers.
Science, Faculty of
Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for
Graduate

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Vuong, Thao Thi Phuong. "Farmers' perceptions of the "Unleashing the Power of Cassava in Africa in Response to the Food Crisis" (UPoCA) project : Experiences from Malawi." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-171455.

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The “Unleashing the Power of Cassava in Africa in Response to the Food Price Crisis” (UPoCA) project carried out by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture from 2008 to 2010 aimed to assist farmers to increase food security and improve livelihoods through promoting cassava cultivation. In this study, 120 beneficiary households of the UPoCA project in Kasungu and Dowa provinces in Malawi were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire together with key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The aim was to find out their perceptions of the UPoCA project, food security situation and gendered differences, through which sustainability aspects of the project were discussed. Using the SPSS 19 software, descriptive statistics, chi-square tests and logistic regressions were generated for statistical results. In general, despite issues regarding quality and timeliness of the seed distribution service the majority of the beneficiary households were satisfied with the project stating that it helped improve their food security and livelihoods. However there emerged issues of exclusion of the most vulnerable households and the low participation of female-headed households which were initially targeted by the project. The study also found out the prevalence of seasonal hunger among the studied households and challenges facing the farmers in growing cassava which affect the adoption of the crop and the project’s sustainability. The study suggested that future similar projects should be designed for a longer duration than UPoCA. They should use clear criteria to identify target beneficiaries, exercise thorough monitoring on quality of distributed planting materials and time delivery as well as put more focus on training.

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Schünemann, Franziska [Verfasser], and Manfred [Akademischer Betreuer] Zeller. "Economy-wide policy modeling of the food-energy-water nexus : identifying synergies and tradeoffs on food, energy, and water security in Malawi / Franziska Schünemann ; Betreuer: Manfred Zeller." Hohenheim : Kommunikations-, Informations- und Medienzentrum der Universität Hohenheim, 2017. http://d-nb.info/114179019X/34.

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Nkhoma, Peter Rock. "Constituting Agricultural and Food Policy in Malawi: The Role of the State and International Donors in the Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP)." Scholar Commons, 2016. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6556.

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Numerous studies have been undertaken on the political economy of agricultural policies in developing countries. These studies have explained agricultural policies in terms of urban bias, economic reforms, and domestic politics. Recently, the emphasis has been on explanations that reference the existence of a rational-legal and patronage element within the African state. Such explanations tend to underplay the extent to which agricultural policies are devised in a context of power asymmetries between the state and international donors or financial institutions. In the Malawian context specifically, limited attention has been paid to the possibility that policies are a negotiated outcome of interactions informed by competing objectives at the state-donor interface. Accordingly, the proposed study will attempt to fill this existing gap in the literature. Malawi is currently at the center of policy debates regarding the state’s capacity to launch a uniquely African Green Revolution within a marketized and capitalist configuration. Such debates mark the continued underinvestment in agriculture on the African continent. The Malawi case, therefore, provides a unique opportunity to explore the extent to which state level efforts are either confounded or enabled by donors and international financial institutions. The specific successes and failures of the Malawi case speak to the question of how other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa might successfully address food production and food security issues. This dissertation will explore the overarching question of the role of the state and international donors in shaping agricultural and food security policies using Malawi’s farm input subsidy program as a case study. The main research methods to explore this question are qualitative, including interviews with various development stakeholders (government ministries, international development agencies, researchers from policy research and academic institutions, and civil society organizations) associated with agriculture and food policy-making, and textual analysis of publications associated with them. The research specifically targets key experts in the area of agriculture and food security. The findings indicate that policies have been greatly influenced by the competing ideologies of the state and donors, with each recognizing the problem but differing on the approach and modalities for solving food insecurity in Malawi. To this extent, there has been considerable inconsistency in policies with obvious negative outcomes. More recently, there has been an aligning of policy positions towards the use of social welfare programs and commercialization in addressing food insecurity. This alignment relates to policy positions on both the FISP and the configuration of the wider agricultural sector as manifest in the National Agricultural Policy, for example. The role of domestic politics vs. donors in policy processes has been in flux due to changes in the political and economic environment and configuration at specific junctures. The study also finds that evidence has been important in informing policy-making, more importantly, finance has had significant impact in attenuating the influence of domestic politics, so that the recently proposed and implemented reforms to FISP, although connected to considerable sociopolitical pressure from various quarters, have been largely precipitated by a serious fiscal crisis on the part of the government. To this extent, the state has assumed a pragmatic approach to policy-making i.e., one that is cognizant of the limitations imposed by finance and Malawi’s very harsh, challenging, and complex context.

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Köcke, Sebastian. "The Perception of Cassava in Malawi : A Literature Study About a Root Crop’s Implication on Food Security in the Past and the Present." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-401859.

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Climate change and weather phenomena like the El Niño-La Niña Southern Oscillation aremaking agriculture increasingly vulnerable in the Global South. In Malawi, where morethan 90% of the agriculture is rain-fed, food insecurity is becoming an annual problem. Inthe past, governmental policies have focused on improving maize production, which has ledinto mono-culture and a dependency on this crop resulting in acceleration of food insecurity.To fight hunger, non-governmental organisations and international donors are now focusingon promoting cassava due to its low-input requirements and drought resistance. Althoughcassava is marketed as somewhat of ’a new discovery’ in Malawi, the root crop has beencultivated in the country for nearly as long as maize. This thesis explores the historicalecology of cassava in Malawi and its involvement in historical food crises, where it wasused as a famine crop. Nowadays, cassava is mostly promoted as a cash crop but variousconstraints are still in the way of cassava production and processing which will be examinedin this thesis. Furthermore, the thesis explores the eects of agricultural policies on cassavaand the ways in which non-governmental organisations are promoting cassava. It will alsobe shown that the perception of cassava is not unison in Malawi and that the promotionof cassava should be adapted to the specific local situations. Additionally, based on thehistorical and current experience of cassava cultivation in Malawi, the possible eectsof an increased cassava cultivation and processing on food security will be discussed, inparticular based on the three dimensions of food security: food availability, food access andfood use.

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Biru, Urgessa. "Land tenure, resource management and food security in sub-Saharan Africa, implications for rural sustainability, land and agricultural policy analysis, a case of Malawi." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape7/PQDD_0001/NQ40362.pdf.

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Dobbie, Samantha Louise. "The potential of agent-based modeling as a tool to unravel the complexity of household food security : a case study of rural southern Malawi." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2016. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/412710/.

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Household food security is shaped by the way in which households acquire and utilise assets, within a context of vulnerability. The multiple interactions between the various factors that affect the livelihoods of households give rise to often complex and non-linear system behaviour. Conventional policies have failed to eradicate food insecurity within developing country contexts. There is a need for new approaches to direct the design and implementation of interventions that address the multi-scalar and dynamic nature of food security. One possible technique is agent-based modelling, which comprises a computerised simulation of agents located within an environment. Behaviour at the system level is an emergent property of the collective behaviour at the local level, resulting from the interactions between agents and the environment through predisposed rules. Within Malawi, the vast majority of the rural population is engaged in subsistence farming. Continued reliance upon rain-fed agriculture renders smallholders vulnerable to climatic shocks, whilst high population densities, small plot size and poor soil quality further compound food insecurity. The overarching aim of this project was to explore the potential of agent-based modelling to unravel the complexity of household food security within rural Southern Malawi. As a starting point, we used cluster analysis of household survey data to construct a typology of rural households. This drove the design of an agent-based model (ABM) that takes into account the availability, access, utilisation and stability components of food security. Techniques from exploratory modelling and analysis were then employed to explore model uncertainty and identify potential pathways to alleviate food insecurity of households within rural Southern Malawi. The ability of agent-based modelling to address the complexity of food security was then evaluated. The model was found to be highly salient. However, future work will need to enhance the credibility and legitimacy of the tool. It is only then that the true potential of ABM's in addressing the complexity of rural food security will be fulfilled.

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Kachulu, Mutisungilire Francisco [Verfasser], and Uwe [Akademischer Betreuer] Schneider. "Food Security, Climate Change Adaptation and Land Use Options for Smallholder Farmers in Malawi : a Biophysical-Economic Modeling Approach / Mutisungilire Francisco Kachulu ; Betreuer: Uwe Schneider." Hamburg : Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, 2017. http://d-nb.info/1131254635/34.

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Elhag, Salaheldin. "Conventional monitoring and evaluation, limitations in changing attitudes and achieving sustainability and what is the aternative M&E approach? food security program implemented by Save the Children US Malawi, a case study /." Click here to view full text, 2007.

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Chiwona-Karltun, Linley. "A reason to be bitter : cassava classification from the farmers' perspective /." Stockholm : [Karolinska institutets bibl.], 2001. http://diss.kib.ki.se/2001/91-7349-078-4/.

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"A case study of the impact of irrigation on household food security in two villages in Chingale, Malawi." Thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/737.

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This case study investigated the impact of irrigation on household food security at Ibu and Kalizinje villages in Chingale, Malawi. The aim of the study was to investigate whether irrigation improved household food security. The study was qualitative in nature. Fifty-eight farmers and three World Vision field staff participated in the study. Group discussions with participatory techniques and in-depth interviews were used to collect data. Data were analysed qualitatively using matrix/logical analysis. Irrigation improved irrigating farmers’ household food security through an increase in production and income levels. Irrigating farmers were better off in terms of crop production and income levels than non-irrigating farmers. Irrigating farmers planted irrigated maize two to three times a year, while non-irrigating farmers planted rain-fed maize only once a year. In terms of income levels, irrigating farmers produced more food than households required, and sold surpluses. Most irrigating farmers began cash cropping after the introduction of irrigation and also earned higher incomes, as irrigation enabled production of crops during lean periods and enabled them to sell surpluses at higher prices. Irrigation did not improve crop diversification. Non-irrigating farmers diversified crops more than irrigating farmers by planting groundnuts and sweet potatoes. Income from irrigating farmers did not increase dietary diversity and the acquisition of assets for irrigating farmers. Few farmers consumed a variety of foods and few acquired assets with the income derived from irrigation. Nevertheless, irrigation has the potential to smooth production cycles and provide food and income during seasons when food and income would be low. In addition, the study revealed the following as problems faced by farmers: constraining size of small diesel pumps, pump breakdown at Kalizinje, floods, pests and diseases, storage problems, lack of market places and poor roads, small land sizes, and expensive farm inputs.
Thesis (M.Sc..)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

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"Assessing The Potential Of Household Food Processing To Improve Zinc Nutrition In Malawi." Tulane University Digital Library, 2016.

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Malawi is one of the least-developed countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with high rates of food insecurity, stunting, and micronutrient malnutrition. Zinc deficiency is associated with a number of health problems in Malawi, including diarrhea, pneumonia, stunting, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Maize is the staple of the national diet, yet the zinc nutrition of maize-based diets is compromised by the presence of phytate, a potent inhibitor of zinc absorption. Phytate levels can be reduced by basic household processing methods such as soaking, germinating, and fermenting, thus increasing the rate of zinc absorption. Novel research on sustainable approaches to addressing malnutrition using these kinds of food-based methods is urgently needed. Using food consumption data from the Malawi Third Integrated Household Survey and the latest models to predict zinc absorption, this study estimates the proportion of the population at risk of zinc deficiency, with a focus on vulnerable sub-groups including women and children. Next, it uses a simulation model to estimate the effects of reducing dietary phytate through processing and compares those results to an alternative simulation based on biofortification. Finally, this study examines the practical considerations necessary to promote improved maize processing using a behavior change communication approach and estimates the cost-effectiveness of the intervention compared to alternatives. The study"'s findings indicate that the initially high proportion of people at risk of zinc deficiency in Malawi can be substantially reduced by processing maize to reduce phytate. Compared to biofortification, the impact of processing was greater for all regions and sub-groups, and the advantage of processing was more pronounced in the South and in rural areas. An intervention to promote these improved methods using behavior change communication and nutrition education compares favorably against alternatives on a cost-effectiveness basis. A thorough analysis of culture and gender norms, the decision-making context, and the drivers of food choice in Malawi suggest that an intervention to promote household-level maize processing can be culturally appropriate and scalable if the context is properly considered. Given these findings, food-based approaches such as household level food processing should be given greater attention in policy and practice to sustainably improve food security and health outcomes.
1
Gregory Sclama

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Madziakapita, Anele. "An evaluation of the impact of food aid on food security: the case of Ngabu area in Malawi." Diss., 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/1623.

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The study focused on an evaluation of the impact of food aid on food security in the area of Ngabu in the southern part of Malawi. An evaluation was needed to find out whether the food aid approach to food insecurity was the one best suited to Ngabu and whether the government's approach had produced the intended results. This study showed that food aid, when timely used, has helped to raise the dietary status and nutrition and consumption of many households in Ngabu in times of natural disaster. Food aid, however, has had a negative impact on food security by creating laziness, food aid dependency and low food production since the source of food it offers is easier to come by than that by production. The impact of food aid on the markets of Ngabu, however, has been minimal.
Development Studies
M.Admin. (Development Studies)

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Kalima, Edna. "A case study of the impact of irrigation on household food security in two villages in Chingale, Malawi /." 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/881.

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"Agroforestry, soils, and food security in southern Malawi: Interdisciplinary on-farm research linking sustainability and livelihoods." UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ, 2008. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3301345.

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Rischke, Ramona. "Essays on Food Security and the Nutrition Transition in Developing Countries." Doctoral thesis, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-1735-0000-0023-9973-7.

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Abstract:

The nature of food insecurity has been changing in the world. While research on food insecurity in developing countries used to focus on undernourishment (i.e. lack of calorie consumption) and related outcomes, today, many developing countries face at least a “double burden of malnutrition” with persistently high rates of undernourishment and increasing rates of overweight, obesity and related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). An important driver of overweight and obesity in developing countries is the „nutrition transition“, i.e. the trend towards the consumption of more energy-dense, highly processed foods and more sedentary lifestyles. Two essays of this Ph.D. thesis analyse drivers and consequences of the nutrition transition in developing countries with a particular focus on the role of supermarkets, which have been rapidly spreading in many countries. We provide evidence that the presence of supermarkets causally affects dietary choices and nutritional outcomes. Data collection for this research was carried out in small Kenyan towns of the kind that accommodate most of the country’s urban population. We designed our sample to be quasi-experimental in nature and employ instrumental variable techniques to allow for endogeneity of supermarket purchases. Kenya’s supermarket landscape is dynamic and so far, it has followed the ‘traditional pattern’ of the so-called supermarket revolution. Supermarket purchases are found to contribute to the nutrition transition by shifting consumption towards processed and away from unprocessed foods. At the same time, calorie availability increases as calories are sourced at lower prices in supermarkets. We find that supermarket purchases increase adult Body Mass Index and their probability of being overweight or obese. Yet, we also find that buying in a supermarket tends to decrease underweight among children and adolescents (age 5-19) in terms of stunting (height-for-age). In a third essay, we use secondary household survey data from Malawi to analyse ‘one of the other faces of malnutrition’. The world food price crisis of 2007/08 and other global and regional price and income shocks that followed have spurred interest in producing timely predictions on their implications for food security. A critical research gap remains with comparing simulation outcomes across studies that use different, established methods on the same subject. This is to establish if and to which extent they might result in different and potentially conflicting policy recommendations. We address this gap building on three simulation studies set in Malawi, which analyse welfare in terms of food security and income effects using the same 2004/05 household survey data but resort to methodologies of different complexity. We harmonize simulation scenarios across methods and systematically modify relevant parameters for our comparative assessment. We find differences between methods to depend on the scenario under consideration and to grow with increasing rates of simulated price changes. The differences we find are driven by differences in conceptualising price changes. In case of Malawi, for a reasonable set of observed price changes, mean outcomes on district levels are fairly robust to underlying methodologies. We illustrate that is it important to improve our understanding of how changes in the underlying methodologies change results and to analyse the sensitivity of simulation outcomes to different model assumptions.

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"Food security and child psychosocial well-being: The role of household dynamics and caregiver well-being in rural malawi." Tulane University, 2012.

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31

Koppmair, Stefan. "Determinants and livelihood impacts of natural resource management strategies among smallholder farmers in Malawi." Doctoral thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-1735-0000-0028-8765-0.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Food security – Malawi'

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