Conservation agriculture (CA) is a management paradigm in which soil is covered outside of cropping seasons, minimally disturbed, and recharged with nitrogen-fixing legumes. Finding effective ways to encourage CA is a centuries-old problem playing out acutely today in Sub-Saharan Africa. To better understand this issue, we have collected data on rural livelihoods and CA adoption during a two-year intervention in southern Malawi. The intervention evaluated rates of CA adoption under two different structures of payment and three levels of monitoring. The dataset includes a baseline and endline survey covering 1,900 households, along with surveys conducted with participants opting into the intervention. Baseline and endline questions included modules on farm-level inputs and production at the plot-crop level; plot characteristics; household composition and assets; savings, loans, and other sources of income; neighborhood characteristics; and perceptions regarding CA. Registration questionnaires in the intervention included detailed assessments of recent production in plots being registered to the intervention, and basic information for all other plots; and basic information on household structure and assets.

This paper aimed to identify factors affecting adoption of multiple climate change adapta tion strategies in Southern Malawi. An ordered probit model was estimated using survey data collected in Nsanje and Balaka districts in 2014-2015 cropping season. Age of household head, total land area owned, petty trading and formal employment were found to reduce the probability of adopting more than two CSA strategies. Farmers who reported observing changes in moisture levels in their areas for the 20 -year period prior to the survey were found to have lower probability of adopting four CSA strategies as compared to those who reported not observing any changes in moisture in the same time period. Importantly, being a lead farmer, which proxied ample access to climate smart agriculture extension messages and training access, acreage used in agricultural production and observing an increase in incidences of floods in a 20-year period prior to this study increased the probability of adopting more than two CSA strategies. Interestingly, household income was found not to affect number of CSA strategies adopted. The study recommends that relevant stakeholders should provide farmers with CSA-related extension messages if more farmers are to adopt multiple CSA techniques.

No abstract

No abstract

Do electoral considerations play a role in the targeting of humanitarian transfers? We analyze the targeting of direct cash and food transfers distributed in Malawi in response to an exceptionally poor harvest following a late and erratic rainy season of 2015-16. Combining household survey data on transfers with a remotely sensed measure of drought and with the results of the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections, we show that transfers were disproportionately targeted at marginal constituencies. Rather than distributing the transfers based solely on need or mobilizing its tribal base, the government attempted to persuade swing voters to support its candidates in the next elections. We nd no evidence that this strategy was successful at increasing the vote of ruling party candidates in subsequent elections.