Climate change is increasingly constraining the ability of forest ecosystem services to sustain agricultural production and improve food security and incomes of smallholder farmers in Malawi. In Malawi, smallholder agricultural productivity is low with very poor diversification of the production systems. Rainfall distribution within and between seasons is often erratic, and water use efficiencies are low because of low soil fertility. On the other hand, the use of chemical fertilizer is low and risky in terms of potential economic losses for cash constrained smallholders. Soil organic carbon levels in many places have declined significantly, leading to poor responsiveness of soils to fertilizer inputs.4 pages