Chakwera launches AIP, hints at exit strategy (Nation)

The Nation (Malawi) published an article stating that President Lazarus Chakwera launched this year’s Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP), while hinting that the government is working on an “exit strategy” for the program. In July this year, the AIP came under scrutiny through a book published by Todd Benson, a senior research fellow at IFPRI, who argued that despite investing billions of kwacha each year in the food security initiative, an average 1.8 million Malawians still need relief food from the government and its partners. In the book, titled Disentangling Food Security from Subsistence Agriculture in Malawi, Benson writes in part: “The success of these maize production programs is dependent on good rains, but the burden they impose on the public budget is immense and there is no evidence that these programs result in any structural transformation of smallholder production systems or in a strengthened commercial orientation for the sector.”