sistent with estimated changes in poverty. Although the percentage point decline in the poverty rate is low for the large-scale farmer group (the group with the lowest initial poverty rate), the speed of poverty reduction is actually fastest for this group. Again, in contrast, the decline in poverty is slowest for smallholders relative to other farmers: 42 percent of small-scale farmers remain poor in 2015. As discussed earlier in this chapter, higher value crops are typically grown by large-scale farmers in Malawi, which explains why large-scale farmers’ incomes rise the most. This trend is evident in Figure 9.3, which shows the contributions of growth in different subsectors to changes in the value of production for different farm types. To measure these contributions we designed a series of scenarios in which additional growth in the Agriculture scenario only applied to a single agricultural subsector. For example, in the maize-led growth scenario, additional yield growth occurs only for maize while growth in the other sectors is the same as in the baseline. Figure 9.3 highlights the importance of export-crop-led growth in determining
production growth for certain regional farm types. For example, Salima benefi ts most from more rapid growth in sugarcane; Blantyre and Ngabu benefi t most from
Figure 9.3—Sources of additional production growth by farm household group Percent
6 5 4
3 2 1 0
1 2
Livestock Tobacco
Fisheries Forestry Other cereals
Other export crops
Pulses Horticulture Roots
Maize
Source: The Malawian dynamic computable general equilibrium model results. Notes: Figure shows real production growth over and above baseline scenario growth. The sector indicated is the one driving growth in the scenario.