Disrupting Demand for Commercial Seed: Input Subsidies in Malawi and Zambia

Demand for Maize Hybrids , Seed Subsidies , and Seed Decisionmakers in Zambia

The successful development and diffusion of improved maize seed in Zambia during the 1970s–80s was a major achievement of African agriculture but was predicated on a government commitment to parastatal grain and seed marketing, the provision of services to maize growers, and a pan-territorial pricing scheme that was fiscally unsustainable. Declining maize output when this system was dismantled ...

Smallholder Demand for Maize Hybrids and Selective Seed Subsidies in Zambia

Zambian farmers have extensive experience with maize hybrids and input subsidies. Like other countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, the successful development and diffusion of improved maize seed in Zambia during the 1970s and 1980s was supported by strong government commitment to parastatal grain and seed marketing and subsidized provision of services to maize growers. When this system was ...

Estimating the Enduring Effects of Fertiliser Subsidies on Commercial Fertiliser Demand and Maize Production: Panel Data Evidence from Malawi

Most studies of input subsidy programmes confine their analyses to measuring programme effects over a one-year period. This article estimates the potential longer-run or enduring effects of fertiliser subsidy programmes on smallholder farm households' demand for commercial fertiliser and maize production over time. We use four waves of panel data on 462 farm households in Malawi for whom fertil...

The Maize in Zambia and Malawi

Input Subsidies to Improve Smallholder Maize Productivity in Malawi: Toward an African Green Revolution

Emerging from the worst harvest in a decade, the Government of Malawi implemented one of the most ambitious and successful assaults on hunger in the history of the African continent. Through a national input subsidy program, coinciding with better rainfall conditions, maize production doubled in 2006 and almost tripled in 2007. From a 43% national food deficit in 2005, Malawi achieved a 53% sur...