households than for poor households in general. As ganyu is often paid on a piece rate basis, it
is likely that women get an overall lower income from ganyu than male ganyu workers.

 It is almost a tautology to say that the main problem for poor smallholders is a lack of
resources. They have few assets and it is very risky for them to borrow for agricultural
production, even if they had access to credit. Unless they can produce a surplus, through
switching to higher value crops, or finding more lucrative off-farm employment opportunities,
or their resource base is increased, the outlook for these households is bleak. This is particularly
true for poor female-headed households, about 13 percent of the rural population, who appear to
be caught in a particularly vicious poverty trap. Their labour is barely enough to fulfill domestic
demands and cultivate their inadequate landholdings, but they are forced into ganyu to find food
in the peak cultivation period, thereby reducing still further their ability to grow food for their
family. To break away from this trap, these households have to be given the means to diversify
away from the agricultural sector.

1.2 The estate sector

 There are fewer sources of information on the estate sector which is not yet included in
most of the major surveys carried out in Malawi. Most of the information comes from a few
surveys undertaken in the late 1980s, updated from field work. (Mkandwire et. al., 1990, GoM
1993). This predominantly refers to tenants on tobacco estates.

 There has been rapid expansion of the estate sector in the last decade. Employment on
estates grew at 8 percent per annum during the 1980s. The number of tenant farm households was
estimated at 105,000 in 1989. When dependents are taken into account, the total number of
people dependent on the estates as tenants, permanent workers and their families in 1989 was
around a million.

 Surveys indicate that tenant farmers get paid in cash once a year, but many households get
food rations provided by the estate, the value of which is deducted from their cash payments. The
average food ration is 384kg of maize per household as opposed to the average requirement of 945
kg. There is considerable variation in the level of cash payments tenant farmers earn. In general
smaller estates tend to pay tenants less. In the 1989 survey carried out by Mkandwire et al. the
average cash payment to tenant farmers was MK621 (roughly MK120 per adult equivalent),
though for tenants on estates of less than 15 hectares, that fell to MK 373 (MK80 per adult
equivalent). A 1994 estimate of tenant farmer income gave the figure of MK704, or 140 per adult
equivalent (HIID 1994).

 There is less information on the income of permanent estate workers. The 1989 survey
shows that almost 50 percent of permanent workers were paid less than the rural minimum wage,
and that smaller estates paid less than large estates. This was confirmed by a mission in 1992/3.
The annual income of these workers may be even less, as many are employed for seven months
or less in the year.


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