The Impact of Climate Shocks on Seed Purchase Decisions in Malawi: Implications for Climate Change Adaptation

Stella Nordhagen and Unai Pascual ()

World Development, 2013, vol. 43, issue C, 238-251

Abstract: This paper addresses the relevance of agricultural seed systems in terms of the production and dissemination of seed in the context of adaptation to climate change. Using nationwide household level data from Malawi, we examine the hypothesis that climatic shocks increase small-scale farmers’ reliance on purchased seeds, in particular from local seed markets, an element of the informal seed sector. The results are used to discuss the role of seed systems for potentially supporting small-scale farmers’ adaptation mechanisms in the face of climate change in Malawi. This study has implications for other similar sub-Saharan African contexts.

Keywords: seed systems; climate change adaptation; agrobiodiversity; sub-Saharan Africa; Malawi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X12002045
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:wdevel:v:43:y:2013:i:c:p:238-251

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.08.002

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

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