Impact Of Agricultural Market Reforms On Smallholder Farmers In ...

5.2.5 Transportation Services
Table 5.74 shows that the number of privately owned trucks and minivans or buses has increased
since 1995, while for ADMARC owned transport, the number of trucks had either stayed
approximately the same or decreased. This trend indicates an increasingly important role for
private sector transportation services, in line with the liberalization efforts. Despite this change,
however, the number of large trucks (more than 1 ton) is still small (about 6 per EPA).
5.2.6 Availability and Access to Input and Output Markets
Most agricultural markets in Malawi are involved in selling input, and buying and selling crops
(see Table 5.75). Markets are usually open either on a daily basis or a few times a week. Markets
that are specialized in crop selling are more commonly available either once or twice a week. For
the majority of the markets, the frequency of operation and the volume of trade handled has
increased or not changed since 1995 (see Table 5.76). The closest input and crop markets are on
average located about 6 to 9 kms away from the villages where the farmers were interviewed. As
expected, distances between the villages and the markets are a bit longer in the Northern region
than in the other regions; the smallest distances are found in the Southern region.
In general, output traders are more ubiquitous than input traders (see Table 5.77). And, as
expected, there are usually twice as many retailers than wholesalers in the average EPA. Output
assemblers are more common in Center, while output wholesalers are more common in the North,
and retailers in the South. For commodities, ADMARC markets are less numerous than private
ones, but for inputs, ADMARC markets dominate private ones. ADMARC outlets seem to be
distributed equally across regions, however private input retailers are more common in the
Central region.
Crop buyers usually operate about 3 to 5 months during the year, usually after the harvest season.
Private crop sellers operate longer, about 7 to 8 months a year. Input sellers usually operate for
more months of the year than crop buyers or sellers. ADMARC, on the other hand, sells
commodities year-round. This may indicate that only ADMARC has the capacity to store or
import crops to sell year-round.
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