Items Tagged With Starter Pack

A film by Charles Mann

Editors:  Clint Kenley and Michael J. Palmer

Film: 30 minutes: Supplemental features, approximately 2 hours.

Malawi's Starter Pack program dramatically raised the nation's food production and provides many lessons for improving food security in poor countries.  Created in response to a serious food emergency, instead of food aid, it gave to all small farmers in the country a small pack of improved seed and fertilizer. Through interviews and field footage this film portrays how this program was created, how and why it was changed over a six-year period, its achievements and shortcomings.  Useful for sparking discussions of alternatives to traditional food aid, in illustrating some key dilemmas of international development policy, and in conveying to development practitioners lessons learned from this well-documented food security intervention in Malawi.

Review:  “I REALLY like the Starter Pack film. It is thoughtful, balanced, picturesque, and is truly excellent in showing the reactions of various stakeholders.  It's a gem. . . . Professor (Emeritus) Walter Falcon, Stanford University

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View more details at: IMDb.com

DVD 2 DISC SET: $14.95
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RESOURCES
The most comprehensive treatment of Starter Pack and its successor programs is:  "Agricultural Productivity and Safety Nets in Malawi", Sarah Levy, editor, CABI publishing, 2005.

For an updated overview, see: "Malawi's Starter Pack: A Smarter Subsidy to Empower the Poor with Science-Based Agriculture", Africa Policy Journal, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Spring/Summer 2008. 

Download of this article available from HKS website .