EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The impact of farm input subsidies on maize marketing in Malawi

Lonester Sibande, Alastair Bailey and Sophia Davidova

Food Policy, 2017, vol. 69, issue C, 190-206

Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of subsidised fertilizer on marketing of maize in Malawi. It uses the nationally representative two-wave Integrated Household Panel Survey (IHPS) data of 2010 and 2013. The results suggest that subsidised fertilizer on average increases farmers’ maize market participation as sellers, total quantity of maize sold, and maize commercialisation. In addition, participation in subsidised fertilizer programme is found to increase the probability of farmers to be net sellers and increases net quantity of maize sold. However, the study finds no evidence of effect on net quantity of maize bought and on household maize self-sufficiency. These results suggest that the farm input subsidy programme has contributed toward an increased level of maize market supply engagement for small farmers and in this sense, the policy has the potential to provide the wider external benefits. Furthermore, the results have implication on the sustainability of the subsidy programme, policy formulation and design of programmes for the agricultural sector and small farmers in developing countries.

Keywords: Farm input subsidy; Maize marketing; Malawi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q13 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919217302695
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The impact of farm input subsidies on maize marketing in Malawi (2015) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:69:y:2017:i:c:p:190-206

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2017.04.001

Access Statistics for this article

Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd

More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:69:y:2017:i:c:p:190-206