Can Farm Households Improve Food and Nutrition Security through Adoption of Climate‐smart Practices? Empirical Evidence from Northern Ghana

Abstract

We examine the factors that influence farmers’ decisions to adopt climate‐smart practices and how adoption affects food and nutrition security in Ghana, using an endogenous switching regression approach to account for selectivity bias. The results show that adoption positively and significantly impacts food and nutrition security. The impacts of adoption are greater in the lower quantiles of the distributions of food and nutrition security, an indication of the potential role of adoption in reducing poverty among poor households. Policy efforts that seek to improve farmers’ access to machinery and extension services may enhance the adoption of climate‐smart practices.

Adoption of climate-resilient potato varieties under partial population exposure and its determinants: Case of smallholder farmers in Meru County, Kenya

“…On the other hand, use of organic fertilizers could help with adapting to climate change since fertilizers tend to replenish soils of nutrients that have been depleted over time due to continuous cropping. This finding is consistent with Issahaku et al (2019) who argued that fertilizers used in recommended proportions increased crop productivity.…”

“…There were significant differences between adopters and non-adopters using irrigation and organic fertilizers at 1% and 10%, respectively, with adopters having higher percentages that is 70.83% and 95.83% respectively. Issahaku et al (2019) argued that irrigation could play a positive role in minimizing the adverse effects of rainfall variability. On the other hand, use of organic fertilizers could help with adapting to climate change since fertilizers tend to replenish soils of nutrients that have been depleted over time due to continuous cropping.…”

Sustainable Land Management Practices and Technical and Environmental Efficiency among Smallholder Farmers in Ghana

“…We used farmers' perceived vulnerability to drought as an instrument in the first-stage regression. Farmers' perceived vulnerability to drought has been found to significantly influence their decisions to adopt SLM (Issahaku and Abdulai, 2019;Kurgat et al, 2018), but vulnerability to drought may not necessarily influence efficiency or EIQ slacks. A similar approach was employed to address the potential endogeneity of off-farm work participation.…”

Farmers’ preferences for climate-smart cowpea varieties: implications for crop breeding programmes

“…In Ghana, the sector employs about 75% of the rural population of which majority are women (Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 2017;MoFA). Despite the importance of the sector, agriculture in Ghana remains underinvested and coupled with several challenges such as poor soil health, climate variability and shocks, inadequate infrastructure and institutional bottlenecks, and land degradation (Issahaku & Abdulai, 2020;Martey, Etwire, & Abdoulaye, 2020). Climate simulation and empirical studies have shown that agricultural production will decline if climate-smart strategies are not employed (see Asfaw et al, 2016;Brown et al, 2017).…”