About

Lawrence Daniel Mapemba graduated with a Doctorate of Philosophy Degree in Agricultural Economics from Oklahoma State University, USA. Dr. Mapemba is an agricultural economist based in Malawi with over 20 years of experience working on agricultural development related issues in Malawi and the region. He is currently an Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

His current research includes agricultural policy analysis; the Malawi Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) evaluation including understanding the political, economic and socio-cultural dimensions of various actors involved in the program; economic impacts of climate change; climate smart agriculture, especially, socio-economic issues governing the uptake of conservation agriculture; legume value chains analysis and marketing under Feed the Future program; resource economics and agricultural marketing. Currently Dr.

Mapemba has been working in a team of experts developing the Agricultural Risk Management Strategy (ARMS) that will feed into Malawi’s National Agricultural Investment Plan (NAIP). The FISP evaluations that Dr. Mapemba has done have brought in lessons that he has used to advise the Malawi Government on better programming of the subsidy program. Through his affiliation with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) of USA, he has done policy studies on the nexus among household demand for energy, water and food and advised government on policy design that interconnects these three policy issues.

In his studies on poverty, agricultural development and rural income enhancement, Dr. Mapemba has studied tomato, maize and bean whole value chains from farm inputs to consumers in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi with the aim of making the value chains effective, efficient and looking at ways to reduce loss along the value chains. He has a number of publications in international journals and has also done research that has fed into government policy formulation in Malawi.