ABSTRACT
Defining poverty in money terms begs many questions: the value to be set on a house and subsistence production; the cost of the essentials that must be purchased in the country concerned; the exchange rate applicable, and so on. Poverty tor Malawians shows up in low infant survival rates and family malnutrition in areas where farms are small and crop yields low. In most parts of the developing world, women play a major role in agriculture as workers, and in some parts as farm operators. Marketing enables a person with some land to move from semi-subsistence to growing produce regularly for sale. Co-operatives, or farmers’ associations, can enable small-scale farmers to economize on transport to distant outlets and increase their bargaining power in negotiating terms of sale. Through the 1960s, marketing boards assigned an export monopoly over certain products by government action demonstrated ability to carry out major assembly and sales operations.
