Impact of smallholder farmers’ climate-smart adaptation practices on wheat yield in southern Ethiopia

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study explored factors that determine smallholder farmers’ climate change adaptation practices and their impact on wheat yield in the Lemo district of southern Ethiopia. Focus group discussions and stakeholder consultations were used to supplement survey data collected from 537 wheat smallholder producers. We performed an impact evaluation analysis by combining endogenous switching regression (ESR) with propensity score matching (PSM) model to address the issue of unobserved biases. The study indicates that gender, farmers’ education level, farming experience, cooperative membership, access to extension services, and weather information were significant determinants of smallholder household decisions for climate change adaptation practices. Both ESR and PSM models revealed that smallholder farmers’ adaptation practices significantly enhanced wheat yield by 34.35%. This implies that climate-smart practices adopted by smallholder farmers are vital for improving and sustaining wheat yield. Thus, our findings suggest that policy actions should consider existing smallholder farmers’ knowledge and practices in policy actions aimed at mitigating climate change impacts to sustain agricultural productivity.