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Enhancing Smallholder Market-Oriented Agricultural Production in Malawi - GDCP/MLW/002/FLA

Year of publication 2024

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 2

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Project

Synopsis (short abstract) Malawi faces considerable development challenges, with over 50 percent of the population considered poor, and 24 percent ultrapoor. The country’s economy is highly driven by the agricultural sector. Agriculture, as the main sector of employment for the majority of Malawians, especially women and youth, is also a primary contributor to national and household food and nutrition security. Most farmers cultivate small plots by hand with little irrigation and are vulnerable to risks posed by recurring dry spells, floods, pests and diseases. Although staple crop production has improved since the introduction of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) in 2006, the country continues to face recurring food deficits. Food shortages are the result of a variety of immediate factors such as erratic rainfall, floods, dry spells, poor harvests, post-harvest losses, rising food prices, and limited resilience capacities of affected households and communities to withstand shocks. Against this background, the overall goal of the project was to strengthen the capacity of decentralized institutions of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) to support smallholder market-oriented agricultural production, and thereby contribute to poverty reduction.

Language English

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