- Seven in 10 Malawians (71%) say they or a family member went without enough food “several times,” “many times,” or “always” during the previous year, a 31- percentage-point increase since 2012.
- Food insecurity ranks as by far the most important problem that Malawians say their government must address, cited by 58% of respondents as one of their top three priorities, followed by the related problems of agriculture (28%) and the increasing cost of living (28%).
- Seven in 10 Malawians (71%) say the Agricultural Inputs Programme for farmers favours particular people, parties, or interests.
- Only two in 10 citizens (22%) think that poor farmers are the primary beneficiaries of the AIP. Most think the programme mainly benefits agro-related businesses (38%), politicians (16%), government officials (13%), or traditional leaders (8%).
- Even so, almost two-thirds (63%) of Malawians oppose the idea of abolishing the AIP.
- Regarding alternatives to the AIP, nine out of 10 Malawians (89%) support the idea of providing inputs loans through farmers' clubs, and more than three-fourths (78%) endorse giving poor farmers cash to allow them to buy inputs themselves.
The agriculture sector is central to the Malawian economy, accounting for 27% of gross domestic product and 80% of export earnings and employing 60% of the workforce (Benson, De Weerdt, Duchoslav, & Masanjala, 2023). However, persistent problems with low agricultural productivity, food insecurity, hunger, and poor nutritional outcomes have kept the focus of the Malawian government and other stakeholders on the issue of food and nutrition (Walls et al., 2023).
One of the reasons frequently cited for low agricultural productivity is the inability of smallholder farmers to access productivity-enhancing farm inputs (Nyirenda et al., 2021). Consequently, successive governments have implemented agricultural-input subsidy programmes. The current Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) was introduced in the 2020/2021 agricultural season, replacing the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Nyirenda et al., 2021).
However, the effectiveness of AIP and its predecessor programmes has been a contested topic among practitioners and scholars. Some argue that despite its prominence in the country’s agricultural policy and national budget – 110 billion Kwacha ($63 Million) in the most recent budget – most Malawian farmers still fail to meet their household food demand, and millions depend on food assistance (Duchoslav & De Weerdt, 2023).
Last March, government declared a state of emergency in the 23 districts In Malawi as it projected that most of the citizens will face hunger due to the impact of the drought and cyclones which destroyed crops in most parts of the country during the last farming season. In his national address in November, President Lazarus Chakwera said over 790 000 hectares of maize had been affected by the disaster representing over 44% of national crop area and would render 5.7 million Malawians food insecure from October 2024 to March 2025. He also hinted that in order to meet this food demand, government will need close to 350 billion Kwacha (close to US$200 million) off -budget resources to save so many of our citizens from the looming threat of starvation (Government of Malawi, 2024).
Some Malawians see the AIP as a political token that strains the country’s economy without meeting the goal of achieving food security, and therefore think it should be abolished (Nation Online, 2023; Zgambo, 2025). On the other hand, the government defends it as an honest and effective way of helping poor farmers to survive (Maulidi, 2024).
Findings from the most recent Afrobarometer survey show that a growing majority of Malawians are suffering food shortages and that food insecurity far outranks all other problems that citizens say their government must address.
Respondents think that the AIP mostly benefits agriculture-related businesses or public officials rather than poor farmers. And while most oppose abolishing the programme altogether, overwhelming majorities would favour providing loans through farmers’ clubs or giving farmers cash to buy their own inputs.
