International Journal of Physical and Social Sciences
Year : 2013, Volume : 3, Issue : 10
First page : ( 8) Last page : ( 14)
Online ISSN : 2249-5894.

The effects of agricultural input subsidy programson maize production in Malaŵi using intervention analysis

Jere Wilson Wesley Lazaro, Lazaro Matthews

Aquaculture and Fisheries Science Department, Bunda College of Agriculture, Lilongwe, Malaŵi

Online published on 21 November, 2013.

Abstract

Maize dominates Malaŵi's agriculture and is the staple food for the majority of the population.It occupies 90% of cultivated land and contributes 61.4% of total calories in Malaŵian diet. However, most farmers fail to realize good maize harvests because of the high input cost. Malaŵi faced maize deficits in the 1990’s and had to rely on food aid. This necessitated the resumption of agricultural input intervention programs from 1998 onwards. The programs were the Starter Pack (SP) program from 1998 to 2000; the Targeted Input Program (TIP) from 2001–2005; and the Agricultural Input Subsidy Program (AISP) from 2005 to date. This paper uses intervention analysis to analyze the success of these programs.From the results, it is clear that both starter pack and the agricultural input subsidy programs successfully improved maize production. However, targeted input program had no statistical impact on the production.

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Keywords

Staple food, ARIMA, Fertilizers, Hybrid, National Statistical Office, Green revolution.

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