Costs, revenues and profits: an economic analysis of smallholder tobacco farmer livelihoods in Malawi.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The preservation of the economic livelihood of tobacco farmers is a common argument used to oppose tobacco control measures. However, little empirical evidence exists about these livelihoods. We seek to evaluate the economic livelihoods of individual tobacco farmers in Malawi, including how much money they earn from selling tobacco, and the costs they incur to produce the crop, including labour inputs. We also evaluate farmers' decisions to contract directly with firms that buy their crops.

Methods

We designed and implemented an economic survey of 685 tobacco farmers, including both independent and contract farmers, across the 6 main tobacco-growing districts. We augmented the survey with focus group discussions with subsets of respondents from each region to refi

SUBMITTER: Makoka D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5957074 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature