Potential Farm Planning Strategies for the Prevention of Modern Famines in Malawi Using Game Theory and Linear Programming Methods

This research presents plans for food self-sufficiency using linear programming and game theory techniques, both nationally and for twelve regions in Malawi for the purpose of decreasing the threat of modern famine for Malawian smallholder farmers under conditions of government assistance and no assistance. Comparisons between the weighted median land cultivated in the regions examined and the land recommended for cultivation from the linear programs were made to evaluate the recommendations of several institutions about the ratio of food crops to cash crops for smallholder farmers, as it was found several recommendations for food cultivation were too low to guarantee food security. This research also contains a discussion of famine mitigation and modern famine in the literature using the Web of Science and EBSCOHost databases.