Constituting Agricultural and Food Security Policy in Malawi: Exploring the Factors that Have Driven Policy Processes in the Farm Inputs Subsidy Programme

Abstract

Political economy analyses of agricultural and food security policies in Malawi have emphasized the role played by domestic politics and, more specifically, the centralization of power in the executive. This paper builds on this perspective by exploring the view that such policies are in fact negotiated outcomes of interactions at the state–donor interface. Using interview data gathered from expert key informants and a review of publicly available data, the paper explores how certain policy drivers have interacted to shape agricultural and food security policies in Malawi. The results reveal that policy processes in the recent past have been driven and mediated by fiscal considerations, sociopolitical pressures, and pragmatism, which accounts for the unique and complex peculiarities of the Malawi context.

The politics of agricultural policy and nutrition: A case study of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP)

“…Regarding the comments about government support for a universal programme as reported by Chinsinga (2012), we identified a tension amongst the views of government stakeholders. In keeping with prior literature documenting an interest among some stakeholders to target more ‘productive’ farmers [ 72 , 78 ], our government stakeholders frequently expressed a desire to target ‘productive’ farmers rather than something more universal. They suggested that issues of poverty and food insecurity could be addressed directly through other types of social support consistent with prior studies [ 72 , 94 – 98 ].…”

“…This development may reinforce the dominant view that maize equals food security, but it could also maintain active stakeholder investments in maize seed as opposed to other cereals and legumes [ 77 ]. Whilst Nkhoma (2019) noted that the existing political environment may be the cause of policy oscillations [ 78 ], it could as well be the case that any nutritional impacts and improvements to dietary diversity were secondary to the economic and food-security objectives. There are three reasons for this.…”

“…Following implementation in the face of strong opposition, the FISP largely held the commitment of policy champions notwithstanding being central to some important policy debates both locally and internationally [ 78 ]. These debates include in regard to design and implementation efficiencies, fiscal unsustainability as well as allocative inefficiencies within the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MoAIWD) as well as more broadly in the context of limited government financial resources [ 78 ]. The FISP accounted for over two-thirds of the financial resources of the MoAIWD and over 50% of total (public) agriculture sector spending between 2007/08 and 2011/12 [ 78 ].…”

“…These debates include in regard to design and implementation efficiencies, fiscal unsustainability as well as allocative inefficiencies within the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MoAIWD) as well as more broadly in the context of limited government financial resources [ 78 ]. The FISP accounted for over two-thirds of the financial resources of the MoAIWD and over 50% of total (public) agriculture sector spending between 2007/08 and 2011/12 [ 78 ]. Its replacement from 2020, the AIP, takes a similar form.…”

Disentangling food security from subsistence agriculture in Malawi

“…The high costs, obvious technical inefficiencies, and some evidence of politicization in the implementation of the FISP program have led to increased questioning of whether this is the best use of the significant public resources allocated to the program. Recognizing the potentially important opportunity costs for the overall development of Malawi associated with the inefficient implementation of FISP, coupled with a fiscal crisis for the government linked to withdrawal of donor financial support due to concerns about mismanagement, the government made reforms to the program starting in 2015/16 (Nkhoma, Bosman, and Eduful 2019). These included reducing the number of annual beneficiaries, from around 1.5 million farming households to 900,000, as well as the amount of subsidy farmers receive.…”