Does adoption of improved soybean varieties and their complementary agronomic practices enhance household food security among smallholder farmers in Malawi

Wongani Chirwa, Innocent Pangapanga-Phiri, Horace Phiri & Adane Tufa

Abstract
Soybean is one of the key legume crops that provides several financial benefits for farming households in Malawi. However, Malawi’s persisting efforts to improve smallholder productivity and diversification have only translated into moderate improvements in food security outcomes. Hence, the study aims to assess whether adopting improved soybean varieties and their complementary agronomic practices enhances food security among smallholder farmers in Malawi. Furthermore, using 1 500 sampled households, the study employed the endogenous switching regression to assess farmers’ adoption decisions, and a Cox hazard proportion model to determine the survival and hazard ratio of dis-adoption. In addition, the study identified food consumption score, household dietary diversity score and household food insecurity access score as outcome variables for food security measures. The study’s findings indicate that adopting improved soybean varieties and agronomic practices decreases the household food insecurity access scale and increases the food consumption score and household dietary diversity score. In addition, from the result of the Cox hazard proportion model it can be seen that farmers are less likely to dis-adopt soybean varieties if they own a bicycle, live in a home with an iron roof, or are from the Lilongwe, Ntchisi or Dedza districts. Finally, the study recommends enhancing access to soybean varieties by improving distribution systems and providing transportation solutions for farmers, and suggests conducting a similar study using panel data to more accurately capture the true impact of adoption of improved varieties on food security.