Agricultural Technology Adoption under Climate Change in the Sahel: Micro-evidence from Niger

In this article, we assess the determinants of adoption of agricultural technologies under climate risk and evaluate their impact on food security using data from Niger, together with a set of novel weather variation indicators. We employ multivariate probit and instrumental variable techniques to model adoption decisions and their impact. We find that the adoption of both modern inputs (inorganic fertiliser and improved seed) and organic fertiliser is positively associated with crop productivity and crop income. The use of crop residues does not seem to correlate positively with crop productivity and could even have a negative effect. We find a strong negative association on crop productivity among households reporting that they had experienced a delayed onset of the rainy season. We also find that factors driving modern input use are different from those of crop residues and organic fertiliser. While the latter can be characterised as low-investment capital requirements, more labour requirements and longer times for results, the former includes higher investment capital requirements, fewer labour requirements and shorter times for returns. Furthermore, we find that weather variability is one of the strongest determinants of the type of practice adopted. In regions with greater rainfall and temperature variability, crop residue incorporation into soils is more widely adopted. The probability of using modern inputs and organic fertiliser is negatively and strongly correlated with variability in rainfall and temperature. Households with higher levels of wealth, education and labour are most likely to adopt modern inputs. Distance to the nearest market and extension service also plays a strong role in adoption; the greater the distance, the less likely they are to use modern inputs. The converse holds true for organic fertiliser use: the greater distance the farm household is from the market and the extension centre, the more likely it is to use organic fertiliser.