Mindset or economics: What explains the dominance of maize in Malawi

Lara Cockx, Joachim De Weerdt, Jan Duchoslav and Joseph Nagoli

No 55, Impact assessments from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Abstract: Malawi’s policy ambitions increasingly emphasize the need for greater crop and diet diversity. De-spite these stated goals, the country’s food system continues to revolve around maize, both in pro-duction and consumption. This brief discusses the economic imperatives that drive low-income, land-constrained Malawians to prioritize maize. Only by addressing these underlying incentives can policy effectively reduce maize dominance and support the diversification agenda it seeks to advance.

Keywords: maize; consumer behaviour; consumer economics; feeding habits; economic behaviour; crop production; Malawi; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Eastern Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02-20
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/181792

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:fpr:impass:181792

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Impact assessments from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().