TY - JOUR

T1 - Implications of climate-smart strategy adoption by farm households for food security in Tanzania

AU - Brüssow, Kathleen

AU - Faße, Anja

AU - Grote, Ulrike

N1 - Funding information: This publication is a product of the Trans-SEC project ( www.trans-sec.org ), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The views expressed belong to the authors and may not under any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the BMBF and BMZ.

PY - 2017/7/7

Y1 - 2017/7/7

N2 - As the climate changes, farmers in developing countries seek to employ strategies to help them sustain food production. The objectives of this paper were to identify adaptation strategies in response to climate change and the determinants for their adoption, and to explore the impact of these strategies on food security. The analysis was based on a survey of 900 small-scale farmers in a semi-arid (Dodoma) and a semi-humid (Morogoro) region in Tanzania. Farmers in the semi-humid region tended to diversify their crops, i.e. added additional crop types. Given the more challenging environment in the semi-arid region, farmers there changed their portfolio of crops, i.e. substituted some crops or cultivars with others. Logistic regressions highlighted higher tolerance to risk, land ownership, education and experiences of farmers as drivers of adoption, while income diversification had a negative effect. The propensity score matching approach showed that adopters of climate-smart strategies are on-average more food-secure. These users showed a more diverse pattern of food consumption, greater protein intake and better economic access to food. Changing crop portfolios can help households to cope with climate-related shocks such as droughts and thus appears to be the best performing strategy, especially in terms of more stable food provisioning throughout the year.

AB - As the climate changes, farmers in developing countries seek to employ strategies to help them sustain food production. The objectives of this paper were to identify adaptation strategies in response to climate change and the determinants for their adoption, and to explore the impact of these strategies on food security. The analysis was based on a survey of 900 small-scale farmers in a semi-arid (Dodoma) and a semi-humid (Morogoro) region in Tanzania. Farmers in the semi-humid region tended to diversify their crops, i.e. added additional crop types. Given the more challenging environment in the semi-arid region, farmers there changed their portfolio of crops, i.e. substituted some crops or cultivars with others. Logistic regressions highlighted higher tolerance to risk, land ownership, education and experiences of farmers as drivers of adoption, while income diversification had a negative effect. The propensity score matching approach showed that adopters of climate-smart strategies are on-average more food-secure. These users showed a more diverse pattern of food consumption, greater protein intake and better economic access to food. Changing crop portfolios can help households to cope with climate-related shocks such as droughts and thus appears to be the best performing strategy, especially in terms of more stable food provisioning throughout the year.

KW - Adaptation

KW - Climate change

KW - Food security

KW - Small-scale farming

KW - Tanzania

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85021995503&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s12571-017-0694-y

DO - 10.1007/s12571-017-0694-y

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85021995503

VL - 9

SP - 1203

EP - 1218

JO - Food Security

JF - Food Security

SN - 1876-4517

IS - 6

ER -