IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v146y2021ics0305750x21002333.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leveraging social protection to advance climate-smart agriculture: An empirical analysis of the impacts of Malawi’s Social Action Fund (MASAF) on farmers’ adoption decisions and welfare outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Scognamillo, Antonio
  • Sitko, Nicholas J.

Abstract

This article assesses the interactions between participation in Malawi’s largest public works programme, the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), and three widely promoted climate smart agriculture (CSA) practices. Drawing on three waves of national panel household survey data, we find that participation in MASAF significantly increases the probability that farm households adopt the resource intensive CSA practices of building soil water conservation structures and applying organic fertilizers. Moreover, participation in MASAF contributes to a sustained adoption of these practices over multiple agricultural seasons. We empirically demonstrate that the standalone impact of the CSA practices on maize productivity and the value of crops harvested under normal and dry conditions is, in most cases, not significantly different from zero. However, we find a reduction in sensitivity to low precipitation when MASAF participation occurs in the previous agricultural season. Moreover, the joint treatment effect of MASAF participation with sustained adoption of soil water conservation structures substantially increases households’ productivity and welfare. This synergistic benefit is likely driven by the transfer of skills learned during MASAF public works to farmers’ own fields. Results suggest that the CSA agenda can be enhanced by explicitly integrating existing social protection interventions with the promotion of CSA practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Scognamillo, Antonio & Sitko, Nicholas J., 2021. "Leveraging social protection to advance climate-smart agriculture: An empirical analysis of the impacts of Malawi’s Social Action Fund (MASAF) on farmers’ adoption decisions and welfare outcomes," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:146:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x21002333
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105618
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X21002333
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105618?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anne T. Kuriakose & Rasmus Heltberg & William Wiseman & Cecilia Costella & Rachel Cipryk & Sabine Cornelius, 2013. "Climate-Responsive Social Protection," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 31, pages 19-34, November.
    2. Nakhumwa, TO & Hassan, RM, 2003. "The Adoption Of Soil Conservation Technologies By Smallholder Farmers In Malawi: A Selective Tobit Analysis," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 42(3).
    3. Townsend, Robert M, 1994. "Risk and Insurance in Village India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 539-591, May.
    4. Songqing Jin & Yanyan Liu, 2013. "Welfare and Poverty Impacts of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: Evidence from Andhra Pradesh," Working Papers id:5530, eSocialSciences.
    5. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    6. Aslihan Arslan & Nancy McCarthy & Leslie Lipper & Solomon Asfaw & Andrea Cattaneo & Misael Kokwe, 2015. "Climate Smart Agriculture? Assessing the Adaptation Implications in Zambia," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 753-780, September.
    7. Amadu, Festus O. & McNamara, Paul E. & Miller, Daniel C., 2020. "Understanding the adoption of climate-smart agriculture: A farm-level typology with empirical evidence from southern Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    8. Holden, Stein & Barrett, Christopher B. & Hagos, Fitsum, 2006. "Food-for-work for poverty reduction and the promotion of sustainable land use: can it work?," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 15-38, February.
    9. Sitko, Nicholas J. & Jayne, T.S., 2018. "Integrating Climate- and Market-Smartness into Strategies for Sustainable Productivity Growth of African Agri-food Systems," Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Papers 270643, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security (FSP).
    10. Brantly Callaway & Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna, 2018. "Difference-in-Differences with Multiple Time Periods and an Application on the Minimum Wage and Employment," DETU Working Papers 1804, Department of Economics, Temple University.
    11. Christian Thierfelder & Pauline Chivenge & Walter Mupangwa & Todd S. Rosenstock & Christine Lamanna & Joseph X. Eyre, 2017. "How climate-smart is conservation agriculture (CA)? – its potential to deliver on adaptation, mitigation and productivity on smallholder farms in southern Africa," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 9(3), pages 537-560, June.
    12. Heckman, James J, 1978. "Dummy Endogenous Variables in a Simultaneous Equation System," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 931-959, July.
    13. Fitsum Hagos & Stein Holden, 2006. "Tenure security, resource poverty, public programs, and household plot‐level conservation investments in the highlands of northern Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 34(2), pages 183-196, March.
    14. Silvio Daidone & Benjamin Davis & Sudhanshu Handa & Paul Winters, 2019. "The Household and Individual-Level Productive Impacts of Cash Transfer Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1401-1431.
    15. Ward Anseeuw & Thomas Jayne & Richard Kachule & John Kotsopoulos, 2016. "The Quiet Rise of Medium-Scale Farms in Malawi," Land, MDPI, vol. 5(3), pages 1-22, June.
    16. Nancy McCarthy & Talip Kilic & Alejandro de la Fuente & Joshua M. Brubaker, 2018. "Shelter from the Storm? Household-Level Impacts of, and Responses to, the 2015 Floods in Malawi," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 237-258, October.
    17. Andrew Goodman-Bacon, 2018. "Difference-in-Differences with Variation in Treatment Timing," NBER Working Papers 25018, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Stein Holden & Rodney Lunduka, 2012. "Do fertilizer subsidies crowd out organic manures? The case of Malawi," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 43(3), pages 303-314, May.
    19. Knowler, Duncan & Bradshaw, Ben, 2007. "Farmers' adoption of conservation agriculture: A review and synthesis of recent research," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 25-48, February.
    20. Deininger, Klaus & Liu, Yanyan, 2013. "Welfare and poverty impacts of India's national rural employment guarantee scheme : evidence from Andhra Pradesh," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6543, The World Bank.
    21. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    22. Ravi, Shamika & Engler, Monika, 2015. "Workfare as an Effective Way to Fight Poverty: The Case of India’s NREGS," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 57-71.
    23. Kassie, Menale & Jaleta, Moti & Shiferaw, Bekele & Mmbando, Frank & Mekuria, Mulugetta, 2013. "Adoption of interrelated sustainable agricultural practices in smallholder systems: Evidence from rural Tanzania," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 525-540.
    24. Beegle, Kathleen & Galasso, Emanuela & Goldberg, Jessica, 2017. "Direct and indirect effects of Malawi's public works program on food security," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-23.
    25. World Bank, 2015. "The State of Social Safety Nets 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 22101.
    26. Silvio Daidone & Benjamin Davis & Sudhanshu Handa & Paul Winters, 2019. "The Household and Individual-Level Productive Impacts of Cash Transfer Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1401-1431.
    27. Solomon Asfaw & Alessandro Carraro & Benjamin Davis & Sudhanshu Handa & David Seidenfeld, 2017. "Cash transfer programmes, weather shocks and household welfare: evidence from a randomised experiment in Zambia," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 419-442, October.
    28. Devereux, Stephen, 2016. "Social protection for enhanced food security in sub-Saharan Africa," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 52-62.
    29. Katia Covarrubias & Benjamin Davis & Paul Winters, 2012. "From protection to production: productive impacts of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer scheme," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 50-77, March.
    30. Leslie Lipper & Philip Thornton & Bruce M. Campbell & Tobias Baedeker & Ademola Braimoh & Martin Bwalya & Patrick Caron & Andrea Cattaneo & Dennis Garrity & Kevin Henry & Ryan Hottle & Louise Jackson , 2014. "Climate-smart agriculture for food security," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(12), pages 1068-1072, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yang, Xin & Zhou, Xiaohe & Deng, Xiangzheng, 2022. "Modeling farmers’ adoption of low-carbon agricultural technology in Jianghan Plain, China: An examination of the theory of planned behavior," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    2. Msangi, Haji Athumani & Ndyetabula, Daniel Wilson & Waized, Betty, 2024. "Maximizing impact: The power of combining land tenure formalization and productive social safety nets programmes in Tanzania," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Staffieri, Irene & Sitko, Nicholas J. & Maluccio, John A., 2023. "Sustaining enrolment when rains fail: School feeding, rainfall shocks and schooling in Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sitko, Nicholas J. & Scognamillo, Antonio & Malevolti, Giulia, 2021. "Does receiving food aid influence the adoption of climate-adaptive agricultural practices? Evidence from Ethiopia and Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Ignaciuk, Ada & Malevolti, Giulia & Scognamillo, Antonio & Sitko, Nicholas J., 2022. "Can food aid relax farmers’ constraints to adopting climate-adaptive agricultural practices? Evidence from Ethiopia, Malawi and the United Republic of Tanzania," ESA Working Papers 324073, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA).
    3. Alik-Lagrange, Arthur & Buehren, Niklas & Goldstein, Markus & Hoogeveen, Johannes, 2023. "Welfare impacts of public works in fragile and conflict affected economies: The Londö public works in the Central African Republic," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    4. Jules Gazeaud & Victor Stephane, 2023. "Productive Workfare? Evidence from Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(1), pages 265-290, January.
    5. Rösner, Anja & Haucap, Justus & Heimeshoff, Ulrich, 2020. "The impact of consumer protection in the digital age: Evidence from the European Union," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    6. Athey, Susan & Imbens, Guido W., 2022. "Design-based analysis in Difference-In-Differences settings with staggered adoption," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(1), pages 62-79.
    7. Beegle, Kathleen & Galasso, Emanuela & Goldberg, Jessica, 2017. "Direct and indirect effects of Malawi's public works program on food security," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-23.
    8. Bruno Ferman, 2023. "Inference in difference‐in‐differences: How much should we trust in independent clusters?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 358-369, April.
    9. Sheahan, Megan & Liu, Yanyan & Narayanan, Sudha & Barrett, Christopher B., 2015. "Disaggregated labor supply implications of guaranteed employment in India," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 237345, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Gonçalves, S. & Rodrigues, T.P. & Chagas, A.L.S., 2020. "The impact of wind power on the Brazilian labor market," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    11. Scognamillo, Antonio & Mastrorillo, Marina & Ignaciuk, Adriana, 2024. "One for all and all for one: Increasing the adaptive capacity of households and communities through a public work programme," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    12. Hansen, James & Hellin, Jon & Rosenstock, Todd & Fisher, Eleanor & Cairns, Jill & Stirling, Clare & Lamanna, Christine & van Etten, Jacob & Rose, Alison & Campbell, Bruce, 2019. "Climate risk management and rural poverty reduction," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 28-46.
    13. Luis Alvarez & Bruno Ferman, 2020. "Inference in Difference-in-Differences with Few Treated Units and Spatial Correlation," Papers 2006.16997, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    14. Maclean, J. Catherine & Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2020. "Mandated Sick Pay: Coverage, Utilization, and Welfare Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 13132, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Damian Clarke & Kathya Tapia-Schythe, 2021. "Implementing the panel event study," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 21(4), pages 853-884, December.
    16. Jules Gazeaud & Eric Mvukiyehe & Olivier Sterck, 2023. "Cash Transfers and Migration: Theory and Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(1), pages 143-157, January.
    17. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2023. "On event studies and distributed‐lags in two‐way fixed effects models: Identification, equivalence, and generalization," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 695-713, August.
    18. Premand, Patrick & Stoeffler, Quentin, 2022. "Cash transfers, climatic shocks and resilience in the Sahel," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    19. Fabio Gaetano Santeramo & Lerato Phali, 2023. "On the impact of provincial development policies in South Africa," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(6), pages 1137-1152, November.
    20. Silvio Daidone & Benjamin Davis & Sudhanshu Handa & Paul Winters, 2019. "The Household and Individual-Level Productive Impacts of Cash Transfer Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1401-1431.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:146:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x21002333. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.