Challenges and Opportunities for Raising Agricultural Productivity in Malawi

This paper gives a comprehensive exposé of key challenges and opportunities for agricultural productivity growth in Malawi. It has also raised a number of issues that define the current Research and Development landscape for Malawi. The paper is based on empirical evidence from data from national sources as well as secondary data from international source. The paper argues that unless government increases its financial contribution to Research and Development, research agenda in the country will remain donor driven creating a precarious situation for sustainable agricultural productivity growth.Among other things, this situation is compounded by the increasing budget allocation to the Input Subsidy Programme and the relatively weak extension delivery system in the country as well as other compounding factors discussed in the paper.There is an urgent need to consider strengthening the agricultural extension delivery system if technology development is to result in significant improvements in agricultural productivity. Furthermore, government should make deliberate efforts by creating a conducive environment and building capacity of smallholder farmers for the establishment of farmer producer and marketing associations.