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Evaluating irrigation investments in Malawi: economy‐wide impacts under uncertainty and labor constraints

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Title Evaluating irrigation investments in Malawi: economy‐wide impacts under uncertainty and labor constraints
 
Creator Schuenemann, F.
Thurlow, J.
Meyer, S.
Robertson, R.
Rodrigues, J.
 
Description Irrigation expansion is critical to increase crop yields and mitigate effects from climate change in Sub‐Saharan Africa, but the low profitability has led to little irrigation investments in the region so far. Using an integrated modeling framework, we simultaneously evaluate the returns to irrigation arising from both economic and biophysical impact channels to understand what determines the profitability of irrigation in Malawi. Our results confirm that the returns to irrigation cannot cover the costs in Malawi. While labor‐intensive irrigation expansion leads to unfavorable structural change in the short‐run, the profitability hinges on low irrigated yields that fall far from expectations due to insufficient input use and crop management techniques. On the other hand, we find that the nonmonetary benefits of irrigation regarding higher food security, lower poverty, and reduced vulnerability to climate change make investments in irrigation worthwhile to improve the livelihoods of smallholders.
 
Date 2018-03
2019-07-22T10:17:36Z
2019-07-22T10:17:36Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Schuenemann, F.; Thurlow, J.; Meyer, S.; Robertson, R.; Rodrigues, J. 2018. Evaluating irrigation investments in Malawi: economy‐wide impacts under uncertainty and labor constraints. Agricultural cconomics. 49(2):237-250. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12412
0169-5150
1574-0862
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/102238
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/agec.12412
https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12412
Variability, Risks and Competing Uses
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyrighted; Non-commercial use only
Limited Access
 
Format p. 237-250
 
Publisher Wiley
 
Source Agricultural Economics