Adoption of climate‐smart agriculture among smallholder farmers: Does farmer entrepreneurship matter?

Daniel Kangogo,Domenico Dentoni,Jos Bijman

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105666

Daniel Kangogo, Domenico Dentoni + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105666

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Abstract

Climate change poses significant challenges to agriculture, with serious impacts on smallholder farmers’ food security and livelihoods. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is being promoted to facilitate climate change adaptation and mitigation. While there is evidence that CSA supports smallholders’ adaption to climate change, the rate of CSA adoption remains low, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Previous studies have explained the low adoption based on generic factors such as farm, farmer, institutional and location characteristics, yet little is known about the role of farmers’ cognitive traits. This study investigates the influence of farmer entrepreneurial orientation, a cognitive trait reflecting a farmer’s innovativeness, proactiveness and propensity to take risks. We use data from smallholder potato farmers in Kenya and estimate a set of multivariate probit models to analyse the adoption decisions. Results show that risk-taking positively influences the adoption of irrigation, changing cultivation calendar, use of certified seed, crop rotation and soil testing. Proactiveness is positively related to the use of irrigation, changing the cultivation calendar and use of certified seed, while it is negatively related to intercropping. Contrary to our hypothesis that innovative farmers are more likely to adopt CSA practices, we find a negative relation between innovativeness and the use of certified seed. After categorizing CSA practices based on the main resources required, we find that risk-taking is positively associated with the adoption of practices that require high intensity of skilled labour and financial resources. Innovativeness is negatively associated with practices that require high intensity of financial resources. Lastly, we find proactiveness to be positively associated with the adoption of finance-intensive practices but negatively associated with unskilled-labour-intensive practices. These findings imply, first, that development practitioners should consider the interrelations among CSA practices and farmer entrepreneurial orientation in designing development interventions. Second, policy-makers need to create an environment conducive to farmer entrepreneurship as an indirect way to support the adoption of appropriate CSA practices.

Highlights

Global food production is under serious threat from climate change
This is consistent with previous studies, which have found that climate-smart agriculture (CSA) adoption remains low in developing countries (Lipper et al, 2014) Table A1
As climate change is a challenge to food security and livelihoods worldwide, recent academic discussions on how farmers can adapt to climate change have focused on the adoption of CSA practices

Summary

Introduction

Global food production is under serious threat from climate change. in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where agriculture is an important sector for economic development, climate change adds another layer of challenges to agricultural production and rural devel opment (Maggio and Sitko, 2019). In Kenya, the main climatic chal lenges facing smallholder farmers include frequent droughts, periodic floods and unpredictable rainfall patterns, which continue to pose a threat to food and livelihood security (Ochieng et al, 2016). In response to these challenges, various mitigation and adaptation strategies such as climate-smart agriculture (CSA) have been developed and promoted to improve farm productivity and enhance food security (FAO, 2013). CSA encompasses practices and technologies that have the potential to achieve the “triple-win” of increasing food security and incomes, climate change adaptation and mitigation (Campbell et al, 2014). Factors that explain the low adoption of CSA practices include farm and farmer character istics, and institutional constraints (Bernier et al, 2015) as well as the characteristics of the practices themselves (Senyolo et al, 2018)

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