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Can cooperatives commercialize farming in Malawi?

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Title Can cooperatives commercialize farming in Malawi?
 
Creator Davis, Kristin
Kazembe, Cynthia
Benson, Todd
De Weerdt, Joachim
Duchoslav, Jan
 
Subject smallholders
poverty
farmers
agricultural cooperatives
inputs
prices
agricultural products
farm equipment
land
commercialization
development
 
Description Smallholder farmers constitute the largest group of economic actors in Malawi and there is increasing recognition that the small scale at which they operate does not offer for most a pathway out of poverty, let alone to prosperity. Increasingly the idea is gaining traction that by joining forces through primary agricultural cooperatives, smallholder farmers across Malawi can reap many of the benefits that larger farmers on commercial estates have been able to realize, such as  negotiating better price for agricultural inputs through bulk purchases;  negotiating better prices for agricultural outputs through aggregation and storage;  adding value to raw agricultural products;  accessing professional equipment, such as tractors or irrigation;  hiring professional services, such as a farm or business manager; or  pooling contiguous pieces of land for more efficient farming. In this brief we summarize the findings of a detailed report (Davis et al., 2022) on research conducted to assess the current status of cooperatives in the country and what project implementers and policymakers can do to enable cooperatives to contribute to increased commercialization and professionalization of smallholder farming in Malawi.
 
Date 2023-05-19
2023-08-08T09:32:50Z
2023-08-08T09:32:50Z
 
Type Brief
 
Identifier Davis, Kristin; Kazembe, Cynthia; Benson, Todd; De Weerdt, Joachim; and Duchoslav, Jan. 2023. Can cooperatives commercialize farming in Malawi? MaSSP Policy Note 49. Lilongwe, Malawi: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.136710
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/131414
https://doi.org/10.2499/p15738coll2.136710
 
Language en
 
Relation MaSSP Policy Note
 
Rights Open Access
 
Format 3 pages
application/pdf
 
Publisher International Food Policy Research Institute