Adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices and differentiated nutritional outcome among rural households: a case of Punjab province, Pakistan

Abstract

Climate change impacts on agriculture have substantial implications on human diet and nutrition. This study explored the factors affecting the adoption decisions of climate-smart agricultural practices through a multivariate probit model and then assessed the average effect of these adopted practices on rural households’ food diversity and per capita dietary intake by using propensity score matching. For this purpose, a total of 196 rural households from the Punjab province were selected through a multi-stage purposive and random sampling procedure for face to face survey. According to research results, the family type was found positively associated with the adoption of all climate-smart agricultural practices. More than 50% of the total daily per capita calorie and iron consumption of rural households is provided by the cereal crops. The Simpson food diversity index indicates that rural households adopting a higher number of practices consume more diversified food as compared to rural households with a lower number of practices at their farm. Moreover, the difference between the per capita calorie intake of full adopters and multiple adopters is the lowest as compared to the difference between full adopters and partial adopters and the difference between full adopters and single adopters. Thus, adopting more climate-smart agricultural practices increase calorie intake more than adopting fewer practices at the farm. Given a positive association between the level of adoption and food diversity as well as nutritional outcomes, government agencies should create awareness among the rural community about the benefits of adopting more climate-smart agricultural practices through visiting fields and organizing regular training for better nutrition.