Climate-Smart Agriculture, Welfare, and Income Risk Management in Ethiopia
Date
2022
Authors
Yitbarek, Eleni
Tesfaye, Wondimagegn
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Economic Research Consortium
Abstract
Despite significant gains in poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa, rural
poverty remains a concern in the region (Barrett et al., 2017; Hansen et al., 2019;
Clay and Zimmerer, 2020). The agriculture sector in the region continues to
underperform because farmers rely on unsustainable farming practices that lead
to land degradation and poor soil fertility (Marenya and Barrett, 2009; Tittonell
and Giller, 2013; Grabowski et al., 2016; Mekuria, 2018; Yigezu, 2021). Moreover,
climate change appears to be a major source of risk for agricultural production.
One option for sustainable agricultural production is “climate-smart” agricultural
practices that support production and enhance adaptive capacity (Bradshaw,
Dolan, and Smit, 2004; Di Falco, Veronesi, and Yesuf, 2011; Lipper et al., 2014; Asfaw et al., 2016). Thus, it is important to establish this link of substitutability or
complementarity of different livelihoods options of farmers such as adopting CSA and
other income risk management strategies such as migration and off-farm employment,
scaling up CSA practices or promoting off-farm employment to improve farmer’s
resilience against the effect of climate change. This brief provides insight into the
link between CSA and household welfare and income risk management in SSA using
data from a low-income country context using Ethiopia as a case.