Do agricultural subsidies work?

Agricultural Input Subsidies.

The Recent Malawi Experience
Ephraim Chirwa and Andrew Dorward
Oxford University Press
First Edition published in 2013
320 pages


A new book by Future Agricultures members Ephraim Chirwa and Andrew Dorward offers an up-to-date review of theory and experience of agricultural input subsidies in low income countries.

Agricultural Input Subsidies: The Recent Malawi Experience includes a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the Malawi Agricultural Input Subsidy Programme.

The authors aim to contribute to a greater understanding of the roles, contributions, and pitfalls of agricultural input subsidies as instruments for promoting food security, poverty reduction, social protection, and wider economic growth in poor agrarian economies. The specific objectives are

• to update and develop theoretical understanding of agricultural input subsidies’ impacts, allowing for new delivery systems and instruments and specific constraints inhibiting the livelihoods of poor subsistence farmers and the economies of which they are a major part;
• to derive from Malawi’s experience lessons about the implementation and impacts of a large-scale agricultural input subsidy programme, with specifi c focus on the contextual, design, and implementation determinants of economy-wide, benefi ciary, and market impacts; and
• to promote debate about strategic policy decisions in the design of large-scale agricultural input subsidies in contemporary low income agrarian economies, including targeting and graduation, to foster their sustainable contribution to agricultural development and poverty reduction.

Open Access version – free to download (pdf)
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