Gender Marker 1

Cassava is the second-most important staple food crop after maize in Malawi. The availability of different varieties of cassava allow for both commercial use and household consumption of cassava to hedge against food insecurity. Malawi is prone to drought due to climate change vulnerability, poor agricultural practices and high population growth making cassava, a drought-resistant crop, an attrac- tive option.

This study sets out to answer the question of whether cassava is, indeed, the 21st century crop for smallholders. The focus lies on smallholder production sys- tems in Nkhotakota District on the shores of Lake Malawi and in the rural vicinity of Lilongwe, the capital city. A nexus between the household asset endowments of smallholder farmers and their participation in the value chain was examined to identify root causes of the supply-demand mismatch and to formulate recom- mendations for effective value chain development. A partial value chain analysis has been conducted to account for the participation of smallholders in the value chain. We chose a structural analysis over an economic analysis, as prices are high- ly volatile in the informal markets of Malawi and notoriously difficult to solicit from actors. Since the responsibility for the production of food and cash crops falls broadly along gender lines within a household, gender aspects take a central role in our research. All our instruments included gender differentiated elements.

This paper presents a review of the commercial sustainability, profitability, challenges, impact, and potential contribution of weather index insurance (WII) products to improving resilience in weather-affected agricultural systems in developing countries. This is important given the continuing demand on governments to manage the considerable weather risk faced by smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa and other weather-exposed regions in developing economies.

This assessment has been developed in a two-step process. First, a literature review was conducted summarising the global experience in developing weather index insurance programmes. Second, we conducted a field investigation designed to extract a more detailed understanding of whether the results of recently launched WII pilots in Sub-Saharan Africa (in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) are in line with the global experience.

Crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are typically less than half of yields in the developed world. With growing populations, and with climate change already beginning to put downward pressure on crop yields, intervention is urgently needed to enable farmers in SSA to produce more food. A key first step is to ensure that farmers have greater, and more reliable, access to high-quality seed of the modern varieties of climate smart crops that will best equip them to both feed themselves and produce food for barter or sale.

In many cases, breeding work for new varieties has been done. Farmers, however, are unaware of the new varieties, or seed of these varieties is not reaching them at meaningful levels. As a result, potential farmer yield and overall production levels for the target crops are not realised. The opportunity cost associated with this is significant and, without intervention, will grow as the effects of climate change increase.

This information brief highlights key findings in the Vuna report “Agribusiness Responses to Climate Risks: Implications for Improving Smallholder Resilience”

This information brief highlights key findings in the Vuna report “Transformational Adaptation to Climate Change: Concepts, Examples, and Relevance for Agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa,