The influences on farmers' planned and actual farm adaptation decisions: Evidence from small-scale irrigation schemes in South-Eastern Africa

Fentahun Abebe, Alec Zuo, Sarah Wheeler, Henning Bjornlund, Mario Chilundo, Luitfred Kissoly and Thabani Dube

Ecological Economics, 2022, vol. 202, issue C

Abstract: Studies are scarce linking planned farmer adaptation practices with their actual practices over time. This study addresses this gap by investigating planned and actual adaptation behaviour, using data collected in 2014 and 2017, from various irrigation schemes in south-eastern Africa. Four planned farm adaptation indexes were created and analysed, with findings suggesting that land size, previous adaptation experience and credit access were positively associated with all types of adaptation. The results from the two waves of survey analysis also indicated very different influences between planned and actual practices, with the proportion of farmers actually undertaking a particular practice far greater than those who planned to undertake it. This result might be related to the project intervention within the study schemes, where numerous factors previously hampering irrigation were resolved, increasing farmers' ability to adapt. Enhancing the availability and quality of education, extension services and finance could be valuable in encouraging further farm adaptation.

Keywords: Climate change; Farm adaptation; Fractional probit model; Irrigation; Climate perceptions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800922002567
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:202:y:2022:i:c:s0921800922002567

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107594

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().