Tobacco, Transformation and Development Dilemmas from Central Africa

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Martin Prowse, Paul Grassin

   Pages 1-11

3. Smallholder Burley Reform Process and Maize Production in Malawi 1990–2005

   • Martin Prowse, Paul Grassin

   Pages 13-49

4. A Comparative Value Chain Analysis of Smallholder Production: 2003/2004 and 2009/2010

   • Martin Prowse, Paul Grassin

   Pages 51-63

5. Traceability and the Global Tobacco Value Chain

   • Martin Prowse, Paul Grassin

   Pages 65-77

6. Brokers and Bondage at the Coalface of Contract Farming

   • Martin Prowse, Paul Grassin

   Pages 79-94

7. Competition and the Institutional Architecture for Contract Farming

   • Martin Prowse, Paul Grassin

   Pages 95-108

8. A Very Short Political Economy of Malawi

   • Martin Prowse, Paul Grassin

   Pages 109-127

9. Conclusion

   • Martin Prowse, Paul Grassin

   Pages 129-135

10. Back Matter

    Pages 137-139

    PDF

This book takes the reader through the expansion, restructuring and possible salvation of Malawi’s main industry, tobacco. Malawi has been dependent on tobacco exports for a century, but now, with demand for Malawian tobacco declining fast, the country needs to diversify rapidly. The authors combine an innovative range of theory and methods to provide a comprehensive and incisive analysis of the dilemmas faced by countries which still rely on a limited number of agricultural commodities in the 21st century. This work will be ideal for scholars and researchers interested in political economy and African development. 

• Political economy
• Agriculture
• Politics
• Transformation
• Tobacco
• Development
• Africa

“The monograph is an informative, if short (139 pages), study of Malawi's main income earner, the tobacco sector, with a specific focus on smallholder burley tobacco production. … The authors use quantitative and qualitative methods with value chain and political economic analyses to raise questions and suggest answers for the tobacco sector, particularly smallholder burley tobacco production, and for broader economic development.” (Pauline E. Peters, Journal of Agrarian Change, May, 2020)

• School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Cambridge, UK

  Martin Prowse

• European Center for Sociology and Political Science, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France

  Paul Grassin

Martin Prowse is Lecturer at the University of Manchester, UK. He has worked at the Overseas Development Institute, UK, and at universities in Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. His research focuses on equity in agricultural intensification, value chains and climate change, mostly in Africa. 


Paul Grassin is a Researcher at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, with expertise in social stratification, cultural anthropology and comparative politics. His research focuses on the production of social order, the sociology of the police and police-people relations in urban and rural Malawi.

Policies and ethics