Education, financial aid, and awareness can reduce smallholder farmers' vulnerability to drought under climate change

Abstract

Analyses of future agricultural drought impacts require a multidisciplinary approach in which both human and environmental dynamics are studied. In this study, we used the socio-hydrologic, agent-based drought risk adaptation model ADOPT. This model simulates the decisions of smallholder farmers regarding on-farm drought adaptation measures and the resulting dynamics in household vulnerability and drought impact over time. We applied ADOPT to assess the effect of four top-down disaster risk reduction interventions on smallholder farmers' drought risk in the Kenyan drylands: the robustness of additional extension services, lowered credit rates, ex ante rather than ex post cash transfers, and improved early warnings were evaluated under different climate change scenarios. Model results suggest that extension services increase the adoption of newer low-cost drought adaptation measures while credit schemes are useful for measures with a high investment cost, and ex ante cash transfers allow the least wealthy households to adopt low-cost, well-known measures. Early warning systems are shown to be more effective in climate scenarios with less frequent droughts. Combining all four interventions displays a mutually reinforcing effect with a sharp increase in the adoption of on-farm drought adaptation measures, resulting in reduced food insecurity, decreased poverty levels, and drastically lower need for emergency aid, even under hotter and drier climate conditions. These nonlinear synergies indicate that a holistic perspective is needed to support smallholder resilience in the Kenyan drylands.