IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20120090.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is EU Support to Malawi Agriculture Effective?

Author

Listed:
  • Wouter Zant

    (VU University Amsterdam)

Abstract

See also The Economics of Food Aid under Subsistence Farming with an Application to Malawi in 'Food Policy', 2012, 37(1), 124-141. We measure the impact of the Farmers Income Diversification Program (FIDP), an EU funded program implemented in Malawi from late 2005 onwards, aiming at increasing agricultural productivity, diversification, value addition, commercialization and trade of subsistence farmers. The geographical spread of the implementation of FIDP is exploited to identify its impact. Computations are based on annual data by Extension Planning Area, 198 in total, fully covering Malawi, for the period 2003-04 to 2009-10. The estimations support a statistically significant impact of FIDP on agricultural productivity, with increases reaching 20% to 24% relative to base period levels, with a lag of at least one year after the start of the program and increasing over the years. Evidence on diversification of crop income is less strong but still suggests increases ranging from 5% to 10%. Results are robust for instrumental variables, synthetic controls, clustering of standard errors and inclusion of additional covariates.

Suggested Citation

  • Wouter Zant, 2012. "Is EU Support to Malawi Agriculture Effective?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-090/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20120090
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/12090.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zant, Wouter, 2012. "The economics of food aid under subsistence farming with an application to Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 124-141.
    2. Nigel Key & Elisabeth Sadoulet & Alain De Janvry, 2000. "Transactions Costs and Agricultural Household Supply Response," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(2), pages 245-259.
    3. Harrigan, Jane, 2008. "Food insecurity, poverty and the Malawian Starter Pack: Fresh start or false start?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 237-249, June.
    4. Wouter Zant, 2013. "How Is the Liberalization of Food Markets Progressing? Market Integration and Transaction Costs in Subsistence Economies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(1), pages 28-54.
    5. de Janvry, Alain & Fafchamps, Marcel & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 1991. "Peasant Household Behaviour with Missing Markets: Some Paradoxes Explained," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(409), pages 1400-1417, November.
    6. Jayne, T S, 1994. "Do High Food Marketing Costs Constrain Cash Crop Production? Evidence from Zimbabwe," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 387-402, January.
    7. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Addison, Tony & Singhal, Saurabh & Tarp, Finn, 2013. "Aid to Africa: The Changing Context," WIDER Working Paper Series 144, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Tony Addison & Saurabh Singhal & Finn Tarp, 2013. "Aid to Africa: the Changing Context," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-144, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wouter Zant, 2012. "How does Market Access affect Smallholder Behavior? The Case of Tobacco Marketing in Malawi," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-088/V, Tinbergen Institute, revised 25 Aug 2014.
    2. Wouter Zant, 2016. "How does Market Access for Smallholders affect Export Supply? The Case of Tobacco Marketing in Malawi," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-054/V, Tinbergen Institute, revised 08 Aug 2018.
    3. Sheahan, Megan & Black, Roy & Jayne, T.S., 2013. "Are Kenyan farmers under-utilizing fertilizer? Implications for input intensification strategies and research," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 39-52.
    4. Yao, B. & Shanoyan, A., 2018. "The Use of Mobile Money Application and Smallholder Farmer Market Participation: Evidence form Cote d Ivoire and Tanzania," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277259, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. Dzanku, Fred M., 2015. "Household-specific food price differentials and high-value crop production in rural Ghana," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 73-82.
    6. Kurt B. Waldman & Stacey Giroux & Jordan P. Blekking & Kathy Baylis & Tom P. Evans, 2020. "Smallholder food storage dynamics and resilience," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 12(1), pages 7-20, February.
    7. Fred Mawunyo Dzanku, 2018. "Rational But Poor? An Explanation for Rural Economic Livelihood Strategy," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(2), pages 365-381, June.
    8. Sibande, Lonester & Bailey, Alastair & Davidova, Sophia, 2017. "The impact of farm input subsidies on maize marketing in Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 190-206.
    9. Embaye, Weldensie T. & Bergtold, Jason S. & Schwab, Benjamin & Zereyesus, Yacob A., 2018. "Modeling Farm Household’s Productivity under Inseparable Production and Consumption decisions," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274226, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Sitko, Nicholas J. & Scognamillo, Antonio & Malevolti, Giulia, 2021. "Does receiving food aid influence the adoption of climate-adaptive agricultural practices? Evidence from Ethiopia and Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    11. Hoffmann, Vivian & Gatobu, Ken Mwithirwa, 2014. "Growing their own: Unobservable quality and the value of self-provisioning," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 168-178.
    12. Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda, 2012. "Targeted Subsidies and Private Market Participation: An Assessment of Fertilizer Demand in Nigeria:," IFPRI discussion papers 1194, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    13. Wood, Benjamin & Nelson, Carl H. & Kilic, Talip & Murray, Siobhan, 2012. "Up in Smoke?: Agricultural Commercialization,Rising Food Prices and Stunting in Malawi," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 131261, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Momanyi, Denis & Lagat, Prof. Job K. & Ayuya, Dr. Oscar I., 2016. "Analysis of the Marketing Behaviour of African Indigenous Leafy Vegetables among Smallholder Farmers in Nyamira County, Kenya," MPRA Paper 69202, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Jan 2016.
    15. Sheahan, Megan & Black, Roy & Jayne, Thomas S., 2012. "Are Farmers Under-Utilizing Fertilizer? Evidence from Kenya," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126739, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Joachim Vandercasteelen & Seneshaw Tamru & Bart Minten & Johan Swinnen, 2017. "Secondary towns, agricultural prices, and intensification: Evidence from Ethiopia," LICOS Discussion Papers 39317, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    17. Ruben, Ruerd & Pender, John, 2004. "Rural diversity and heterogeneity in less-favoured areas: the quest for policy targeting," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 303-320, August.
    18. Lovo, Stefania, 2008. "Market Imperfections And Class Structure: The Case Of South Africa," 107th Seminar, January 30-February 1, 2008, Sevilla, Spain 6675, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Balie, Jean & Strutt, Anna & Nelgen, Signe & Narayanan, 2018. "Infrastructure investments for improved market access in subSaharan Africa: A CGE analysis," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 13(2), June.
    20. Mesbah Motamed & Kenneth A. Foster & Wallace E. Tyner, 2008. "Applying cointegration and error correction to measure trade linkages: maize prices in the United States and Mexico," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 39(1), pages 29-39, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    agricultural policy; impact evaluation; subsistence farming; Malawi; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20120090. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.