Climate Variability and the adoption of Climate-Smart Agricultural practices in Ethiopia: Insights from a Temporal and Geospatial Analysis

Climate-related challenges are increasingly affecting the agricultural sector, with farmers in developing countries being the most affected. This underscores the importance of adopting Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) to ensure the sustainable productivity and resilience of farmers.

This study explored the adoption patterns of various CSA practices, tracing their temporal shifts and geographical distribution, while examining their interaction with climate variabilities. Using a panel household survey dataset from rural Ethiopia (2011/12, 2013/14, 2015/16, and 2018/19), and combining with village-level historical climate data - including precipitation, wet-day frequency, and temperature - our method mixes both descriptive and geospatial analysis. We explored a range of climate-smart practices that potentially serve the purposes of productivity, resilience, and mitigation. These encompass crop-yield improving, agronomic and soil conservation measures, as well as livestock management practices.

We find the adoption patterns of majority of CSA practices present diverse trajectories. Notably, there has been an uptrend in the use of improved crop seeds and inorganic fertilizers, while agronomic and soil conservation measures show fluctuating patterns. Livestock related practices, though rising, maintain low adoption rates. A closer look at regions reveals noticeable disparities in CSA uptake, which reveals diverse behaviours among farmers by location. The intensity of adoption, indicated by the CSA portfolio index, presents a rising pattern between 2011/12 and 2015/16, with a slight decline by 2018/19, with varied pattern by regions, signifies the challenges associated with simultaneously adopting a wide range of CSA practices. Results of geospatial analyses highlight the existence of resilience in farming, especially in the central to northern part of the country, amidst climate variability. However, its limited geographic spread underscores a broader gap. These are compounded by our findings of presence of diverse climatic challenges by locations. Therefore, adaptive solutions should be tailored to address specific challenges posed by different climate variabilities, promoting sustainable and resilient crop and livestock production across the diverse regions of the country. Consequently, policymakers should give precedence to region-specific CSA adoption and intensification strategies over broad-based approaches.