The Mitigating Impact of Land Tenure Security on Drought-induced Food Insecurity: Evidence from Rural Malawi

This paper explores household variation in land tenure security and drought shocks across villages to investigate the extent to which land tenure systems matter in households’ capacity to cope with adverse impacts of weather shocks for agricultural dependent households in rural Malawi. Our findings reveal that land tenure security cushions the effects of drought regimes on food security. Further, we establish access to credit facilities for farm investment purposes as the underlying channel that mediates the impact of drought shocks on food insecurity. The results of this study reinforce the growing consensus that property rights through land tenure security are associated with improved agricultural productivity and consequently household food security.