Climate induced vulnerability to poverty among smallholder farmers: Evidence from Malawi

Assa M. Maganga, Levison Chiwaula and Patrick Kambewa

World Development Perspectives, 2021, vol. 21, issue C

Abstract: Assessment of farmers’ climate change induced vulnerability is an important step for enhancing the understanding and decision-making to reduce such vulnerability. Using panel version of Malawi Living Standards Measurement Survey data of 2010, 2013 and 2016, this paper examines the magnitude of climate induced vulnerability to expected poverty among farming households and how climate change relates to ex-post poverty and poverty transition. We find that vulnerability is strongly associated with short-run climate stresses and less so with the long-run climate related shocks. The effects of vulnerability on actual poverty lessen with time in the long run. Similarly, climate related stresses worsen the welfare of farming households. Droughts, floods and irregular rainfall exacerbates poverty with droughts showing the greatest impact on farmers welfare loss, followed by floods. The study underscores the importance of livestock, in buffering against poverty through serving a safety net, and off-farm income-generating activities. This suggests that the inclusion of livestock in shaping of climate management policies for farmers is crucial.

Keywords: Vulnerability; Poverty; Climate shocks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245229292030093X
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:wodepe:v:21:y:2021:i:c:s245229292030093x

DOI: 10.1016/j.wdp.2020.100273

Access Statistics for this article

World Development Perspectives is currently edited by Ashwini Chhatre

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