Linking the ICRISAT Genebank to Poverty Reduction and Welfare in Malawi

ABSTRACT Genebanks contribute to the development of improved crop varieties through the conservation and supply of diverse germplasm for use in agricultural research by scientists, such as plant breeders. Tracing their contribution to the welfare and poverty impacts of improved varieties on smallholder farmers presents multiple challenges, as the germplasm is distributed to users globally and a crop improvement programme can take as long as 10 years to develop a new improved variety that can be released to farmers. We examine the relationship between genetic ancestry, development of improved groundnut varieties and poverty reduction among smallholder households in Malawi. First, we apportion the genetic ancestry and relative provenance of International Crops Research Institute for the Semi‐Arid Tropics genes of each variety and relate them to genebanks using pedigree data and expert interviews. We then leverage a three‐wave household‐level panel dataset with several estimation strategies, including panel and pseudo‐panel fixed effect estimators, to examine the association between genetic ancestry, the adoption of improved groundnut varieties and household welfare. We establish a positive association between genetic ancestry and the development of improved groundnut varieties. We find a positive association between the adoption of improved groundnut varieties and household income, assets and livestock (wealth). Improved groundnut varieties are also negatively associated with poverty indices. Our findings lend support and credence to continued investments in global efforts to conserve and widely distribute diverse genetic materials for crop improvement.