248 SAMUEL BENIN ET AL. Figure 9.1— Agricultural districts in Malawi Karonga
Mzuzu
Kasungu Salima Lilongwe Machinga Blantyre Ngabu
Source: Authors.
cane. Although these farmers harvest 14 percent of cropland, they account for a much larger share of the land allocated to export crops and a smaller share of non- maize foodcrops, such as roots and pulses. We call these farmers “large-scale farmers” although it should be noted that this group includes farms ranging from 3 hectares to large estates. The average large-scale farm is 8 hectares in size, although this number is biased upward by a relatively small number of very large farms, such that the median farm size for this group lies well below the mean. Large-scale farms tend to have higher than average per capita expenditures: US$204 per person compared to US$122 for small-scale rural farmers. Accordingly, the incidence of poverty