The impact of climate-smart technology adoption on farmers’ welfare in Northern Zambia

Smallholder farmers in Zambia face serious challenges caused by climate change and by variability that threaten their livelihoods. To increase their resilience to climate change, farmers need to adopt various climate-smart agricultural technologies. However, their decisions on the types of technology often lack information about the beneficial effects of particular technologies. The overall objective of this study was to examine the effect of CSA technologies on the welfare of farmers in Zambia. The data used was from a household survey by Total Land Care Zambia as part of the Smallholder Productivity Promotion Programme. The dataset consisted of 407 sampled maize farmers from Northern and Luapula provinces in Northern Zambia, who were selected using a stratified random technique. The study used the propensity score matching technique to account for selection bias in technology adoption in estimating the welfare effects of manure and residue retention. The use of t-test confirmed the existence of systematic differences (selection bias) in the adoption of manure and residue retention. Between these technologies, adopters and non-adopters were statistically different in having received agribusiness training, location (province), legume cultivation, access to agricultural inputs, and access to a water source, household having a male head (gender), climate change awareness, extension access, use of a treadle pump and being involved in seed production. Empirical results, showed that manure adoption resulted in positive and significant gap in household maize yield (32% to 39.2% increase) between adopters and non-adopters at 5% level of significance. The maize income gap between the adopters of manure and non-adopters was positive, ranging from 21.8% to 22.3%. Overall, the adopters of manure who were comparable with non-adopters had a higher maize yield and income. On the impact of residue retention, v the results showed that the adoption of residue retention led to a positive gap in the household maize yield (ranging from 19.5% to 25.3%). The crop income (maize) was not significantly affected by residue retention adoption, with effect ranging from negative 3.95% to positive 5.1%. Overall, residue adoption increased farmers’ maize yield while the effect on income was smaller. These technologies were found to have positive effect on farmers welfare. Increase in yield reduces household food insecurity. However, the adoption rate of these technologies was low at 13.60% and 32.8% for manure and residue retention respectively. These findings point to the need for agricultural institutions to continue prioritising and promoting the adoption of manure and residue retention. This can be achieved by developing strategies that promotes and encourages farmer to attend agribusiness trainings, as it encourages farmers to adopt CSA technologies, and also ensures that smallholder farmers progress from practising subsistence farming to participating in markets to earn a better income. Furthermore, improving farmers’ market participation should be given a greater focus by distributing market information to all farmers so that they could reach markets and sell their produce, thus raising income. Agricultural institutions should ensure that farmers receive adequate extension contact, as this helps in increasing farmers’ chances of adopting technologies that improve production.