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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The Agridealer Project in Malawi or how to misunderstand entrepreneurship in rural Malawi
| Panel |
12. African entrepreneurs and/in emerging markets: towards a situational understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour?
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| Paper ID | 512 |
| Author(s) |
Donge, Jan Kees van
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Productivity in Malawian smallholder agriculture is low and this is mostly explained as a consequence of low technology. The use of improved seeds, herbicides and especially artificial fertilizer is seen as crucial to raise this productivity. The Agridealer project, funded by Rockefeller Foundation and implemented by an American NGO: the Citizen’s Network for Foreign Affairs (CNFA), assumed that new technology was not taken up because these inputs were not available in rural Malawi. It intended to train with the support of agribusiness rural shopkeepers as well informed stockists of these inputs. This would also provide agribusiness with a low cost rural distribution network. The results of this project have been very disappointing.
This paper will argue that there is no problem of underdeveloped markets in rural Malawi. There is a dense network of small scale trading in which actors usually do not realise large volumes. The cause for the low uptake of these agricultural inputs has to be located on the demand side instead of on the supply side. There is a perpetual shortage of cash in rural Malawi, which is caused by a high rate of inflation combined with worsening terms of trade for the rural sector.
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