Determinants and livelihood impacts of natural resource management strategies among smallholder farmers in Malawi

Abstract

Determinants and livelihood impacts of natural resource management strategies among smallholder farmers in Malawi Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Fakultät für Agrarwissenschaften der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen vorgelegt von Stefan Koppmair geboren in Dillingen a.d. Donau Göttingen, März 2016 I would like to thank the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) for a rich collaboration, for giving me the chance to return to Malawi as a part of the Adoption Pathways Project, and for granting me access to secondary farm household data. I am especially thankful to Dr. Menale Kassie for his support and his valuable contributions to chapters 2 and 3. Thank you, Chalmers Mulwa and Geoffrey Muricho for enthusiastically sharing the Malawi experience with me, despite being so far from your families in Kenya. The financial support of the CGIAR Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA) through a grant to CIMMYT, which supported my participation, is also gratefully acknowledged.Many thanks go to Prof. Julius Mangisoni for the warm welcome at "The warm heart of Africa" and for introducing me to Bunda College of Agriculture. I would like to thank Sam Katengeza for being a great host at Bunda College, sharing his experience and knowledge, and for leading our field work in an outstanding manner; good success with completing your PhD my friend. I am also thankful to our team of field supervisors, enumerators and drivers who did a great job and stayed so motivated throughout the data collection; thanks for all the fun time too. Great many thanks also go to the village heads, farmers and extension officers in all the places we have visited, for their warm welcome and their amazing hospitality.