Climate Change Adaptation in Africa

Abstract

Agriculture, especially as practiced by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Expanding farmers’ adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices not only reduces risk from climate change events but also contributes to enhanced productivity and hence enables sustained investment in adaptation technologies. This paper is based on analysis of data collected from 734 randomly selected farm household heads and field observations. The paper first employs Heckman sample selection model to analyze the two-step process of adaptation to climate change (perception and response). Then it employs nearest-neighbor matching techniques to measures the impact of adopting climate-smart agricultural practices. The results reveal that farmers’ decision to use the practices is influenced by agro-ecology, specifically physical, natural and social factors. The results also suggested that households that adopted the practices experienced higher productivity by 22.2% over non-users implying that climate related risks that lead to yield variability are significantly reduced. Climate smart agriculture practices are knowledge-intensive. Therefore, scaling up these adaptation benefits of climate-smart agricultural practices requires public investment to raise awareness and provide technological support.