Impact of climate-smart agriculture adoption on household food consumption expenditure in Ethiopia

Abstract

Climate change poses significant challenges to the agricultural production system and food security. In response, the adoption of climate‑smart agriculture is imperative for strengthening climate resilience while improving farm productivity and food security. This study aimed to investigate the impact of climate-smart agriculture adoption on food consumption expenditure in Ethiopia. Secondary data analysis was conducted using the fifth wave of the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey, collected between September 2021 and June 2022, covering the main agricultural production periods. We employed a multinomial logit model to identify factors associated with the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices and a multinomial endogenous switching regression model to reduce selection bias stemming from both observed and unobserved characteristics while estimating the impact of climate-smart agricultural practices on food consumption expenditure in Ethiopia. The climate-smart agricultural practices considered in this study included improved seed, irrigation, and organic fertilizer at the individual level, as separate practices and in various combinations. The results of this study revealed that farmers’ decisions to adopt different climate-smart agriculture practices were influenced by age, education, farm size, livestock ownership, access to extension, credit access, advisory service, off-farm employment, distance to the nearest market, distance to the road, access to climate information, and soil fertility. The result revealed that adopting the climate-smart agriculture practices package significantly increases household food consumption expenditure. In addition, households adopting multiple climate-smart agriculture practices exhibit higher food consumption expenditure than those adopting a single practice. The study recommends that policymakers and relevant stakeholders strengthen socioeconomic, institutional, and financial factors to promote the adoption of multiple climate-smart agriculture practices, thereby improving household food consumption expenditure.