literature (Peters 2007; van Donge 1999), elders and traditional leaders play an important role and resolve some 60% of disputes. For most households, insecure tenure adds to an already precarious situation: 30% and 17% of respondents experienced theft of crops and livestock, respectively, in the last 5 years. Housing is basic with 75% having a grass roof and 79% a mud floor. With only about 40% having more than 5 years of schooling, education may limit participation in more demanding off-farm activities even if demand exists (Dimova _et al._ 2015; Nagler and Naude 2014). High food price variability (Harttgen _et al._ 2016), marked seasonality (Sassi 2015) and exposure to rainfall risks (Lewin _et al._ 2012), and health shocks (Hyder _et al._ 2015) in a situation of limited asset ownership and insurance access are reasons why 28% of respondent households had not eaten normally the last seven days and 19% had at least one member seriously sick. Land lease markets are incipient (Lunduka _et al._ 2009), with 6% of households participating.

The mean smallholder parcel had been in use for some 12 years and measures 0.61 ha (table 2). While most smallholder land is customary (77%), 20% is under other tenures including freehold. Inheritance remains the main avenue of accessing land in Malawi (Peters 2010; Takane 2008); two-thirds of parcels were acquired in this way, followed by allocation via the village headman (19%), rental (4%), and purchase (2%). While most parcels (80%) are owner-operated, only 58% of operators were born in the village, highlighting the increased importance of migration. Most sample parcels (77%) are in the village in flat terrain (73%) with 15% mountainous and 8% in valley bottoms. Few producers adopted fertility-improving practices such as fallowing (15%), crop rotation (13%), or terracing (7%) and planting of fruit (18%) or other trees (8%).

Most of smallholders’ land area is used for maize (46%) followed by wheat (24%), sorghum/millet (10%) and various crops including legumes, tubers, and cash crops including coffee or tobacco that together account for some 20% of area. With an output value of 305 US$/ha at the 2006 exchange rate, organic manure is used on 36% of plots, improved seed on 11%, and chemical fertilizer on 7%. Data on labor use allows inferences only on which household members participated in specific tasks, suggesting that land preparation and management tasks such as ridging and weeding are, with very few exceptions, performed manually with females being more involved than men.

Village level variables highlight Malawi’s diversity in terms of inheritance practices (Berge _et al._ 2014) and the extent to which land scarcity has increased market activity or given rise to intensification (table 3). 67% of villages follow matrilineal inheritance patterns (61%, 33%, and 6% of which matri-, patri-, or neolocal), 28% a patrilineal one (93% and 7% of which patri- and neo-local), and 5% others. With 84% and 79%, respectively, matrilineal inheritance prevails in the South -where matrilocality dominates- and the Center -where villages are almost equally split between matri- and patri-locality. It is virtually absent in the North where only 2% of villages report to follow a matrilineal and patrilocal inheritance pattern.

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