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Structural adjustment, agricultural development and the poor: lessons from the Malawian experience |
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This report examines the complex problems faced by an economically well
managed but small, poor and landlocked country in trying to achieve
equitable growth while coping with great external shocks. Malawi ' s
problems of adjustment have been made difficult by dualism within
dualism - a structure whereby the country ' s agriculture sector is
sharply divided by legal restrictions into estates and smallholders,
and smallholders are de facto divided on the basis of holding size into
a small minority producing a marketable surplus and capable of taking
risks and, a preponderant majority experiencing stagnation or near
economic paralysis. The report also analyzes the effect on the
smallholder sector of structural adjustment measures most immediately
relevant to agricultural and rural development : producer pricing
adjustments, fertilizer policies, grain marketing liberalization, and
withdrawal of donor support from the National Rural Development
Program. It then discusses policies addressing the country ' s dualism,
licensing, pricing, land and taxation - which the government would need
to adopt in support of equitable growth.
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