Confronting Tradeoffs Between Agricultural Ecosystem Services and Adaptation to Climate Change in Mali

Abstract

Changing climatic conditions present new challenges for agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa. Sorghum has proven to be an adaptable and resilient crop despite limited funding for crop development. Recent breeding efforts target hybrid and perennial technologies that may facilitate adaptation to climate change. Advantages of perennial crops over their annual counterparts include improved soil quality and water conservation and reduced inputs and labor requirements. In contrast, hybrid crops are often bred for improved grain yield and earlier maturation to avoid variable conditions. We use discrete choice experiments to model adoption of sorghum as a function of attributes that differ between these technologies and traditional varieties in Mali. Overall, the main perceived advantage of perennial crops is agricultural ecosystem services such as soil improvement, while adoption of hybrid crops is hampered by the inability to reuse seed. Women farmers are less concerned about higher labor requirements associated with perennial crops and the ability to reuse hybrids seeds than male farmers. Farmers prefer traditional sorghum to perennial sorghum and are indifferent between traditional and hybrid sorghum. These findings have important policy implications for understanding tradeoffs that are central to farmer decision making when it comes to breeding technologies for climate adaptation.