Using purposive sampling, the central and Southern regions were selected. The Central region transcends from high to low altitude while the Southern region is predominantly a low altitude area. Maize is extensively grown in both regions with groundnuts and haricot beans being the dominant legume crops. The southern region however has pigeon pea as the most dominant legume. Purposive sampling in consideration of maize production potential and the agro-ecological conditions was then used in combination with stratified sampling to arrive at 6 districts; 5 in the Central region (Lilongwe, Kasungu, Mchinji, Salima and Ntcheu) and; Balaka in the Southern region. Three districts in the Central region (Lilongwe, Kasungu and Mchinji) fall under high potential area while the remaining two (Salima and Ntcheu) and Balaka in the southern region fall under a low potential area. Multi-stage random sampling combined with probability to proportional size sampling methods were then used to get 66 Extension Planning Areas (EPA’s), 91 Sections and 234 villages. The same procedure was again used to get 895 households from the 235 villages. Please refer to baseline reports include with the data. Please refer to baseline reports include with the data.
