This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Agricultural input subsidies have been adopted on a large scale across different African countries in the last few years. However global experience with input subsidies has been mixed, and there is considerable concern that current input subsidies will turn out to be expensive political programmes with very limited development benefits. There is, however, also considerable enthusiasm for new, 'smart' approaches in subsidies' delivery and for their potential to raise the productivity of millions of poor smallholder farmers and lift them out of poverty while promoting wider food security. This book takes forward our understanding of agricultural input subsidies in low income countries. A review and extension of current thinking on the potential roles of such subsidies provides the basis for a broad examination of recent documented experience in different African countries and then for: a detailed examination of Malawi's current agricultural input subsidy programme, the main focus of the book. This large programme has been the subject a very considerable international debate, much of it unfortunately little informed by the substantial amount of information available on the programme. Drawing on their extensive involvement with the programme over many years and on a wide range of information sources, the authors provide a detailed analysis of the historical, political and agro-economic roots and context of the programme, and its implementation and impacts from 2005 to 2011. Of interest in its own right, this also provides critical insights into the potential benefits and risks with such programmes, and on political and technical issues that are critical in success or failure,.

Agricultural Input Subsidies: The Recent Malawi Experience

Business & Money

Chirwa, Ephraim

Dorward, Andrew

Economics

Oxford University Press

"Pro poor" economic growth is widely recognized as an important means for reducing poverty in developing countries. With the majority of the world’s poor living in rural areas, agricultural intensification, with higher land and labor productivity from increased integration in input and output markets, is one way to expand income and livelihood opportunities for rural people. This book uses a new institutional economics perspective to review the effects of market liberalization on service provision to smallholder farmers. In many parts of the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the private sector has failed to fill the gaps left by the collapse of state supported input and credit supply systems. Using case studies from Ghana, Tanzania and Pakistan, the book investigates the difficulties facing the private sector in supplying inputs and credit and the conditions required for sustainable private sector investment to the benefit of rural people. The analysis has important lessons for donor and government policy makers and for companies wishing to make commercial investments. It is invaluable for researchers, academics and development agencies concerned with rural and agricultural economics and development

Smallholder Cash Crop Production Under Market Liberation: A New Institutional Economics Perspective

Kydd, Jonathan

Poulton, Colin

CABI

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