it was the successor of a number of separate marketing boards of the colonial-era and early post-colonial times, whose functions were as much about controlling African smallholders or generating government revenues as in promoting agricultural development.
In its first decade of operation, ADMARC was considered to be more business-like and less bureaucratic than similar parastatal bodies in other African nations, but from its formation it was involved in the diversion of resources from smallholder farming to tobacco estates, often owned by members of the ruling elite.
Following the 1992 shortages, international aid donors demanded a return to multi-party politics by 1994, and President Banda, who had ruled since 1964, was peacefully removed from office during this transition.
In the aftermath of these imposed changes, ADMARC's role was reduced to that of a buyer of last resort and to promoting food security by maintaining a strategic reserve of maize, to be created through domestic and foreign purchases.
Settler demands for the regulation of the peasant tobacco and cotton sectors were partly motivated by fears that profitable smallholder farming could reduce the availability of cheap African labour for their estates.
[4] The formation of the Native Tobacco Board did stimulate African production in the Central Region, but registered growers paid heavily for its operations.
[9] The MCB was hampered by lack of funds; it was reluctant to promote higher maize production for the local market on grounds of cost, and up to 1949 it also discouraged growing for export.
The low prices that the MCB paid in the period 1945-1951 discouraged farmers from growing maize in excess of their own requirements, and inhibited the development of commercial grain markets.
The quantities of maize available for the home market dropped significantly at a time of growing demand caused by poor harvests in the run up to the major famine in 1949.
[13][14] The first General Manager of the newly formed Agricultural Production and Marketing Board was Lionel R. Osborne, who served in this capacity until August 1962.
The Farmers Marketing Board was given wide powers to buy, sell and process farm products, promote price stability and subsidise seed and fertilizer.
The late colonial era administration's policy of limiting food controls to a few crops in selected areas was abandoned by the post-independence government in favour of greater intervention.
The Agriculture Minister was empowered to impose regulations affecting virtually every major food crop produced for sale or consumption by Africans in any district of the country.
[16] During the first years after independence in 1964, Banda and the governing Malawi Congress Party actively supported the smallholder farming sector, as few European-owned estates remained.
Many estates in the Central Region growing Burley tobacco were created, most controlled by Banda and senior officials and politicians of the Malawi Congress Party.
It was given the new power to assist any public or private organisation with capital, credit or other resources in any projects it considered would promote the economic development of Malawi.
Until 1979, it had sound finances, but when tobacco prices collapsed in that year, its liquidity problems threatened its main creditors, Malawi's two commercial banks.
Corruption and general inefficiency in statutory corporations including ADMARC resulted in a 1980 law limiting their directors to holding office for a two-year period, although this could be, and often was, renewed.
[27] However, farm incomes started to decline after 1976, and from 1981 to 1986 the real value of Malawi maize producer prices fell to 40% to 60% compared to those of other Central and East African states.
[29][30] The partial privatisation left ADMARC with limited funds to supply fertilizer and seed to smallholders, and the closure of many of its depots hindered their distribution.
After privatisation had increased competition, ADMARC reduced its maize sales, but by 1988 it had to support over 500,000 Mozambican refugees, and could not replenish its stocks from the poor harvests of the late 1980s.
Rainfall before the 1991 planting season was low and sporadic, and the withdrawal of fertilizer subsidies made what would have been a poor harvest in any event even poorer: only 40% of the normal maize crop was gathered in 1992.
The crisis was caused by state regulation of agriculture, the diversion of resources to inefficient estates and failure to support smallholders growing food crops: all these were policies executed through ADMARC.
[34] Smallholders had relied on the dense network of ADMARC markets before 1987 to obtain fertilizer or seed and to buy or sell crops at standard prices.
It also had to create, with inadequate funds, a 180,000 tonne Strategic Grain Reserve from whichever was cheaper of domestic or imported maize to stabilise prices for farmers and consumers.
[35][36] In 1997, ADMARC had needed to sell the strategic reserve to repay its loans, and after a poor harvest later in 1997, maize stocks were low and consumer prices high.
The 1999 and 2000 maize harvests were good, supported by large sweet potato and cassava crops, grown as the result of USAID projects to promote drought-resistant foods.
To fill up the vacuum created following the withdrawal of ADMARC, the Ministry of Agriculture launched a development programme to train agro-dealers preferably rural shop owners.
It still exists because it has not been possible to create a comprehensive private-sector marketing system, but ADMARC is criticised as inefficient, wasteful and not sufficiently independent of government control.
[43] ADMARC expanded in the decade after 2002 and still exists because of the failure of the agro-dealer programme to create an efficient private sector marketing system.