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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Malawi: The Impact of Pricing Policy on Smallholder Agriculture, 1971-88 |
| Author: | Harrigan, Jane |
| Year: | 1988 |
| Periodical: | Development Policy Review |
| Volume: | 6 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Period: | December |
| Pages: | 415-433 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Malawi |
| Subjects: | price policy agricultural products small farms Economics and Trade Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7679.1988.tb00444.x |
| Abstract: | This article assesses the achievements of Malawi's pricing policy over the last 18 years. Two objectives, namely the achievement of food self-sufficiency and the promotion of cash-crop exports, have determined the nature of price policy. During the 1970s price instruments were used to tax smallholder production of non-food crops with the resulting revenues being channelled into the estate sector in order to promote exports from large-scale farm enterprises. At the same time, the smallholder sector was used as a source of domestic food staples. In the 1980s a conflict arose between the food-crop and export-crop objectives, with the World Bank prescribing the use of parity pricing to encourage smallholder exportable cash crops and the government continuing to place priority on smallholder food-crop production. Hence, pricing decisions in the 1980s failed to achieve a diversification of smallholder agriculture, an increase in smallholder contribution to export revenues, and the attainment of food security at the individual level. Bibliogr., notes. |
