Following the liberalisation of agricultural markets in 1987, smallholder farmers have alternative market channels for selling their agricultural produce, including maize. These market channels include the state marketing agency, private traders, relatives or neighbours, local markets, associations, cooperatives and private companies. The market channels are offering different prices and sales services, which determine farmers’ choice of the
channel for marketing their produce. This paper investigates the factors that explain the choice of marketing channel (private traders, local markets or neighbours) for maize among smallholder farmers in rural Malawi using a multinomial logit model. The results show that education, repeated dealing, distance to day markets are positively associated with the choice of private traders while distance to the tarmac road and distance to the post office provide disincentives to the choice of private traders. The results underscore the importance of developing trust and reputation and investment in infrastructure in order to support agricultural marketing liberalisation policies in low income economies.