Mr. David Zingwe Banda recently participated in the Food Systems Symposium workshop at the University of Göttingen, Germany, sponsored by the Centre for Resilience Agri-food Systems (CRAFS). The symposium took place from September 17th to 18th, 2024. 

The symposium addressed various themes: sustainable agriculture and resilience, social impact and equity in food systems, and gender empowerment. Banda presented an oral paper and made a poster presentation. The presentations titled Smallholder Farming Commercialization and Food Security in Malawi: Do Land Rights and Intra-household Bargaining Power Matter? and Gender Differences and the Welfare Effects of Food Crop Commercialization in Malawi, respectively, were in collaboration with Mr. Laston P. Manja, Ms. Mirriam Matita, and Mr. Alexious Kamangira.

In these two linked papers, we explored gender inequalities within Malawi’s food systems, emphasising the urgent need to address disparities in the fight against food and nutrition insecurity. 

“As key messages, we underscored that women’s land rights must be coupled with their empowerment in household decision-making to ensure that household investments are directed towards the land assets women control”, said Zingwe. 

The presentations also cautioned against the risks of food crop commercialisation for smallholder farmers, noting that over-commercialisation vis-à-vis selling 55% or more of food crops, which is often a sign of distress sales, may exacerbate food insecurity.