Different extension system typologies promote climate-smart agriculture in West Africa

Achieving agricultural productivity and ensuring broad-based sustainability are two important complementary sustainable development goals. However, potential trade-offs could exist in some production and farming systems, especially under the influence of climate change. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) offers the promise of delivering both goals, but its current use is puzzlingly low in many regions of the world, possibly due to information constraints. This paper examines the relationship between different extension system typologies (private extension, public extension, and public-private extension) and the use of CSA practices in three West African countries: Ghana, Mali, and Nigeria. Exploring longitudinal data, we show that farmers with access to extension services are more likely to use CSA practices such as climate-resilient crop varieties, crop rotation, intercropping with cereals, and organic fertilizers. These relationships hold true for both farmers that are advised by both private, public as well as public-private extension services. However, farmers who are jointly advised by both public and private extension services are more likely to use CSA practices. Cross-country estimations underscore significant heterogeneity and context dependency. The extension typologies are associated with CSA in different ways. We also highlight some complementarities and tradeoffs in the use of these CSA practices, suggesting the bundled use of some of these practices such as climate-resilient crop varieties, crop rotation, intercropping, and organic fertilizers. Based on these insights, we conclude that extension services and farmer advisory systems are crucial in promoting CSA with broad implications for building climate resilience while increasing agricultural productivity and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.