ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1607329
Collective action under risk and uncertainty: assessing impacts on smallholder farmers' income and food security in Malawi
Provisionally accepted
- 1Graduate School of International Agriculture Technology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- 2Institute of Green Bio Science and Technology, Seoul National University, Pyeongchang,Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea
- 3Malawi University of Science and Technology, Limbe, Malawi
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Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa face increasing challenges, compounded by risks such as climate change, global conflicts, and food insecurity. Collective action has been promoted as a strategic mechanism to strengthen smallholder farmers' livelihoods, yet limited empirical evidence exists on its effectiveness under recent and compounding risks in Malawi. To address this gap, this study examines the impact of smallholder farmers' participation in collective action on household income and food security in Kasungu District, Malawi, during a period marked by climate shocks and market instability. Data were collected through both qualitative and quantitative methods. Ten focus group discussions were conducted to identify the perceived benefits of participation in cooperatives, followed by a household survey with 475 farmers, including both cooperative members and non-members. Quantitative analysis applied difference-in-differences, entropy balancing, and doubly robust estimation to assess the causal effects. The findings suggest that cooperative membership significantly increased household income and improved dietary diversity, even amid deteriorating food security conditions in the region. However, results varied by gender. While maleheaded households experienced improvements in both income and food security, female-headed households did not see significant improvement in dietary diversity despite the increase in income. The study also finds that support from non-governmental organizations played a key mediating role in facilitating farmers' participation in collective action. These results highlight the potential of collective action to enhance resilience and rural livelihoods under uncertain conditions, while also emphasizing the need for gender-responsive and institutionally supported strategies to ensure equitable outcomes.
Keywords: collective action, cooperative, Food security, gender, Difference-in-differences, entropy balancing, doubly robust difference-in-differences, Malawi
Received: 07 Apr 2025; Accepted: 13 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Suh, Ji and Nindi-Chigwe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Seongtae Ji, Graduate School of International Agriculture Technology, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea
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