EPAR Research Brief #81
Fri, 07/24/2009
Authors: 
Ryan Gockel
Mary Kay Gugerty
Abstract: 

Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) use less fertilizer than farmers in any other region in the world.  Low fertilizer use is one factor explaining the lag in agricultural productivity growth in Africa.  A variety of market interventions to increase fertilizer use have been attempted over the years, with limited success. In the past several decades, Malawi has tried to alter that trend through a variety of innovative programs aimed at achieving national food security through targeted input subsidy programs. The best known of these programs is Malawi’s Starter Pack Programme. The Starter Pack Programme was amended twice into the Targeted Inputs Programme (TIP) and Expanded Targeted Inputs Programme (ETIP), and eventually replaced with the Agricultural Input Subsidy Programme (AISP). The efficiency and equity of the Starter Pack Programme and its successors have been the subject of debate. This report reviews the history, implementation, and perceived effectiveness of the various input subsidy schemes in the context of Malawi’s political economy. We find that AISP is credited with significantly increasing maize yields in Malawi. However, we also find that there are serious challenges facing the most recent input subsidy program, ranging from the rising cost of the subsidy to ongoing implementation struggles related to increased bureaucracy and corruption.  

EPAR’s Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy series provides a history of government intervention in the fertilizer markets of eight Sub-Saharan African countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania. The briefs focus on details of present and past voucher programs, input subsidies, tariffs in the fertilizer sector, and the political context of these policies. The briefs illustrate these policies’ effect on key domestic crops and focus on the strengths and weaknesses of current market structure. Fertilizer policy in SSA has been extremely dynamic over the last fifty years, swinging from enormous levels of intervention in the 1960s and 70s to liberalization of markets of the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, intervention has become more moderate, focusing on “market smart” subsidies and support.

See also:

EPAR Research Brief #42: Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy in Nigeria

EPAR Research Brief #50: Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Executive Summary

EPAR Research Brief #75: Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy in Tanzania

EPAR Research Brief #76: Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy in Mozambique

EPAR Research Brief #77: Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy in Ghana

EPAR Research Brief #78: Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy in Côte d’Ivoire

EPAR Research Brief #79: Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy in Kenya

EPAR Research Brief #80: Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy in Senegal

 

Type of Research: 
Literature Review
Research Topic Category: 
Sustainable Agriculture & Rural Livelihoods
Agricultural Inputs & Farm Management
Political Economy & Governance
Population(s): 
Countries/Governments
Smallholder Farmers
Geographic focus: 
Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries
Dataset(s): 
FAOSTAT

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