Date of Graduation

8-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Agricultural Economics (MS)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness

Advisor/Mentor

Durand-Morat, Alvaro

Committee Member

Park, Eunchun

Second Committee Member

Connor, Lawson

Keywords

Climate smart agriculture; Crop farmer; Zambia

Abstract

Climate smart agriculture (CSA) practiced has been promoted in Zambia since the 1980s to address the declining crop productivity due to increased occurrence of drought or dry spells caused by climate change. Despite considerable research indicating that CSA practices have many potential benefits such as increased yield and income, the adoption rate in southern Africa is still low especially where farmers have stable off farm income. This might be because most of the research and promotion has been directed to the main staple crop maize and other context specific impacts related to agroecological and socioeconomic heterogeneity. In this study we use the endogenous switching regression model to account for heterogeneity. We had to conduct two endogenous switching regression models one that incorporated important crops maize, groundnuts, soyabeans, sunflower, cowpea, and beans and the second that further reduced to the major four crops of maize, groundnuts, soyabeans and sunflower. We found that there was a significant difference in the yield between the adopters and the non-adopters. After accounting for the negative selection bias, the study indicated that non adopters would have higher yields if they adopted CSA while the adopters would yield less if they had adopted CSA. These results are in the context of the eastern province of Zambia which may not be ideal when compared to other regions with favorable conditions

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