Gendered Seed Management and Conservation in Malawi

Abstract In rural Malawi, women play a crucial role in seed management and farming activities, but their contributions remain undervalued in agricultural policy and research. The findings draw on reflections from ethnographic fieldwork in rural Mchinji, in Robert Estate 77, with data collected between 2023 and 2024 from a sample of twenty-five respondents. The article examines the gendered aspects of seed management and conservation in Mchinji District through observations, interviews, focus groups, and seed walks. The findings show that, through everyday practices of seed selection, processing, exchange, and preservation of indigenous crop varieties, rural women sustain household seed and food security and maintain informal seed systems. The article further reveals that women possess extensive agroecological knowledge rooted in experiential and embodied practices, yet this knowledge remains confined to the domestic and informal sphere, limiting its transition into decision-making power. Informal seed exchange networks, largely maintained by women, function as moral economies that ensure resilience and social cohesion but remain institutionally unrecognized. While women are widely regarded as custodians of seeds, their authority is undermined by structural inequalities, including limited land ownership, restricted access to credit, and exclusion from formal agricultural governance. By situating these findings within social reproduction theory and feminist political economy, the paper argues that women’s labor and knowledge are central to the reproduction of both household livelihoods and agroecological systems yet are systematically devalued. The article contributes to debates on seed sovereignty by highlighting the contradiction between women’s responsibility for sustaining seed systems and their marginalization from power and resources.