What determines farmers’ adaptive capacity? Empirical evidence from Malawi

Solomon Asfaw (), Nancy McCarthy, Leslie Lipper, Aslihan Arslan and Andrea Cattaneo
Additional contact information
Solomon Asfaw: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA)
Nancy McCarthy: LEAD Analytics, Inc.
Leslie Lipper: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA)

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, 2016, vol. 8, issue 3, No 16, 643-664

Abstract: Abstract This paper assesses farmers’ incentives and conditioning factors that hinder or promote adaptation strategies and evaluates their impact on crop productivity by using data from nationally representative sample households in Malawi. We employed multivariate probit (MVP) and multinomial treatment effect (MTE) techniques to model adoption decisions and their yield impact. Exposure to delayed onset of rainfall and greater climate variability was positively associated with the choice of risk-reducing agricultural practices such as tree planting, legume intercropping, and soil and water conservation (SWC) but reduced the use of inputs (such as inorganic fertilizer) whose risk reduction benefits are uncertain. Concerning household adaptive capacity, wealthier households were more likely to adopt both modern and sustainable land management (SLM) inputs and were more likely to adopt SLM inputs on plots that were under greater security of tenure. In terms of system-level adaptive capacity, rural institutions, social capital and supply-side constraints were key in governing selection decisions for all practices considered, but particularly for tree planting and both organic and inorganic fertilizer applications. A combination of practices gave rise to higher yields suggesting that this might be a course of action that would sustain growth of yield in Malawi in the future.

Keywords: Climate change; Adaptation; Impact; Malawi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q01 Q12 Q16 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12571-016-0571-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:ssefpa:v:8:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s12571-016-0571-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ulture/journal/12571

DOI: 10.1007/s12571-016-0571-0

Access Statistics for this article

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food is currently edited by R.N. Strange

More articles in Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food from Springer, The International Society for Plant Pathology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().