Patrick Kambewa, Elias Simutowe, Franklin Kilembe:
Factors Affecting Household Incomes among Integrated Agriculture Aquaculture Farmers in Malawi

PATRICK KAMBEWA¹, ELIAS SIMUTOWE², FRANKLIN KILEMBE^3
1University of Malawi, Department of Economics, Malawi
²Bunda Institute for Education & Training (BIET), Malawi
³UNC Project, Health and Nutrition, Malawi

Malawi is ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world with more than 50% of the households living below the poverty line. In response to the poverty situation, the Malawi government in collaboration with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been implementing several poverty reduction programmes in an effort to arrest poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Integrated Agriculture Aquaculture (IAA) is one of the poverty reduction strategies being promoted by developing countries where farming systems involve the cultivation of crops, fish and livestock by one farmer and usually on the same piece of land. While efforts to promote IAA date as far back as the 1980s in Malawi, the adoption by farmers remains low. Furthermore, there is limited published literature on the potential socio"=economic and environmental sustainability and social acceptability of IAA.

Statistical analysis was done by using RESTORE (a research tool for natural resource management) and SPSS soft ware packages and genstat.The result on the whole farm analysis showed that the average income per household was 102,000 Malawi Kwacha (MK) for non-IAAs and MK 98,000 (when the exchange rate was MK 140.00 to $1) for IAA which was not significantly different. The average total cost for fish production alone was calculated as MK 11,708.80 per household while the average total revenue was MK 5,254.86. This gives the gross margin of MK 2,589.86 from fish alone and hence a contribution of 5% percent to total household incomes. This is not a good result because most of the adopters are still struggling. The study established that there market accessibility and price are the ones affecting revenues from fish sales. In addition, different areas experience different temperatures. This has a very big impact on the decomposition of pond inputs that are necessary for the survival of fish. Conflicts over water in some districts were reported where non"=adopters claim that the diversions of water from the main channel to the ponds reduce water quantity and that the use of manure and other pond .

Keywords: Genstat, integrated aquaculture agriculture, monitoring evaluation, recycling

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Contact Address: Elias Simutowe, Bunda Institute for Education & Training (BIET)P.O Box 31343, Lilongwe, Malawi, e-mail: elisimtoweyahoo.co.uk