Endogenous-Switching Regression Modeling of Farmers’ Exposure to Climate Hazards and Reforestation in Selected Villages in Africa

Abstract

Deforestation remains a serious concern for Africa’s economic development and global climatic stability. This paper analyzed the effect of exposure to climate-related hazards on tree planting among smallholder farmers in nine selected African countries. The data were from baseline surveys which were conducted by the CGIAR’s research programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). The included countries were Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda. Data were analyzed with Endogenous Switching regression considering the endogeneity potentials of climate-hazard exposure. The results showed that Uganda and Ethiopia had the highest average numbers of tree planting with 1.082 and 1.000 respectively, while Senegal (89.86%), Kenya (87.77%), Burkina Faso (82.86%) and Ethiopia (82.86%) had the highest exposure to climate-related hazards. Endogenous Switching regression results showed that climate hazard exposure was truly endogenous going by statistical significance of the Wald Chi Square test (p<0.05) and it was significantly influenced by female household headship, perception of more droughts, floods and low ground water. The number of tree that were planted increased significantly (p<0.05) with climate hazard exposure, degraded land areas, asset indices and residence in East Africa, while it reduced with female household headship. In addition, Average Treatment Effect (ATE) result indicated that an average household will plant 0.745 trees more when it had been previously exposed to climate shocks while Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATET) revealed that an average household that was exposed to climate hazards would plant 0.54 more trees than it would if it had not been exposed to hazards. It was concluded that many farmers had been affected by climate-related shocks and efforts to safeguard future climate through tree planting should be gender sensitive and concentrated among previously affected farmers.