The Food Security Impact of Climate-Smart Agricultural Technologies Adoption on Smallholder Farmers in West Africa Sahel Region

Climate change remains a major impediment to food security in majority of developing countries, such as the West Africa Sahel (WASR), due to the rudimentary and rain-fed production system practiced by most farmers. The adoption of climate-smart agricultural technologies (CSAT), which aim to increase resilience and adaptation to changing climatic conditions, is crucial for boosting crop productivity and increasing food sufficiency. This study examined the food security impact of smallholder farmers adopting CSAT in WASR (Mali and Niger). We control for potential endogeneity bias that could occur in this study by employing the extended ordered probit and multinomial endogenous treatment effect model to analyze food security impact using the two most common approaches, which are the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and Food Consumption Scores (FCS). The impact results from the HFIAS estimation indicate that CSAT adopters are more food insecure than non-adopters in WASR. Subsequently, the FCS estimation results show that smallholder farmers adopting CSAT are less food secure than non- adopters. Further analysis of mechanisms and pathways to food security revealed that CSAT 2 Copyright 2024 by Lateef Olalekan Bello, Bola Amoke Awotide, Gideon-Danso-Abbeam, and Takeshi Sakurai. All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. adopters significantly reduced the share of crop production they retained for household consumption compared to non-adopters. Subsequent findings revealed that adopters of CSAT generate significantly higher crop revenues than non-adopters. This implies that CSAT adopters sell the majority of their marketable surplus and retain a minor share for household consumption. These findings suggest that farm-level sensitization programs could emphasize the need for farmers to strike a balance between agricultural investment and food security.