Table 1.

Description of variables (408 farm household observations); smallholder farm households, rural central and southern Malawi, 2014

Variable	Description	Mean	sd
Dietary diversity score (DDS)
Household DDS	Household dietary diversity score	4·17	1·62
Child DDS†	Dietary diversity score of young children (6 months to 5 years)	3·87	1·92
Mother DDS	Dietary diversity score of mothers of young children	4·11	1·67
Farm production diversity
Production diversity score	Number of different food groups produced on farm	4·88	1·69
Crop species count	Number of different crop species cultivated on farm	5·79	2·89
Market access
Village market	Village market exists in community (dummy)	0·56
Time to district market	Distance to the district market in walking hours	1·34	1·13
Market participation
Share of maize sold	Percentage of total maize production sold	7·38	13·71
Share of other food crops sold	Percentage of other food crop production sold	34·71	32·23
Area share of non-food cash crops	Percentage of farm area cultivated with non-food cash crops	10·97	17·92
Agricultural technologies
Improved maize varieties	Farm household cultivates improved maize varieties (dummy)	0·81
Improved legume varieties	Farm household cultivates improved legume varieties (dummy)	0·62
Chemical fertilizer	Farm household uses chemical fertilizer (dummy)	0·92
Maize–legume intercropping	Farm household practises maize–legume intercropping (dummy)	0·51
Other socio-economic and demographic factors
Livestock	Number of animals kept in tropical livestock units (TLU)	0·88	1·50
Off-farm income	Cash income from off-farm activities (thousand Malawi Kwacha)	91·34	157·16
Farm size	Total area owned in acres	2·89	1·99
Household size	Total number of household members	6·23	2·02
Age of head	Age of the household head in years	40·81	11·91
Male head	Household head is male (dummy)	0·86
Education of head	Education of the household head in years	5·39	3·42

^†The total number of children (below 5 years of age) in the 408 households is 519.