Research influencing the nexus between agri-food value chains and nutrition security in Malawi
Research highlights
- Improving livestock markets, aggregation and value addition, diversifies incomes, and enhances households’ ability to buy nutrient-dense foods.
- Integrating livestock with high value crops translates to diversified crop production, and increased availability of nutrient-dense foods.
- The National Livestock Development Policy (2021-2026) provides an opportunity to enhance coherent support for agriculture and nutrition.
Outcomes
Policy recommendations
- Promote inclusive multi-stakeholder driven coordination processes, for agriculture to contribute to income and nutrition
- Promote local value addition, marketing and processing, through preferential procurement and nutrition programs
- Agricultural extension to enhance product delivery through nutrition programmes
- Budgeting for food purchases and nutrition programs, to stimulate farm income diversification Improved soil fertility, through manure Improved feed, quality and quantity Farmers use income from livestock sales to pay for food, education, farm inputs.
The CLIM2 project supported on-farm diversification and integration of crops and livestock as important trajectory to use scarce farm resources more efficiently and improve resilience, benefiting rural farming and business-women in particular. Policy gaps, needs and opportunities for agriculture supporting nutrition were identified.
Policy challenges
- Political will to improve cohesiveness between agricultural and nutrition policies
- Inadequate human resources, skills for multi-sectoral collaboration, coordination and implementation
- Inappropriate resource allocation, to enhance farm incomes and demand for diverse foods
- Path-dependencies, inhibiting women and vulnerable households to participate in agri-food value chains
Policy recommendations
- Promote inclusive multi-stakeholder driven coordination processes, for agriculture to contribute to income and nutrition
- Promote local value addition, marketing and processing, through preferential procurement and nutrition programs
- Agricultural extension to enhance product delivery through nutrition programmes
- Budgeting for food purchases and nutrition programs, to stimulate farm income diversification