IMPACT OF CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE ON RURAL HOUSEHOLDS’ RESILIENCE, VULNERABILITY, FOOD SECURITY AND POVERTY: EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL RIFT VALLEY, ETHIOPIA MA THESIS

Abstract

This study examined the impact of climate-smart agriculture on rural households’ resilience, vulnerability, food security and poverty in case of central rift valley of Ethiopia. To this end cross-sectional data from 278 randomly selected farm households was collected using structured survey questionnaire. Sample households were selected using three-stage proportional to size sampling procedure from four districts and eight kebeles in Central rift valley of Ethiopia. Resilience Index Measurement Analysis and Indicators approach were used to measure resilience and vulnerability, respectively. Food consumption score, dietary diversity score and food insecurity experience scale were used to assess households’ food security while multidimensional poverty index was employed to assess households’ poverty. Multinomial endogenous switching regression was followed to estimate climate-smart agriculture’s impact on outcome variables and average treatment effects were estimated after multinomial endogenous switching regression. The results show that adaptive capacity, absorptive capacity, transformative and mitigation capacity are important for understanding resilience. Average treatment effects after multinomial endogenous switching regression indicated that on average climate-smart agriculture adopter households are found more resilient and less vulnerable than non-adopter households. Moreover, adopter households on average are found to have more food consumption score, dietary diversity score and less food insecurity experience scale than non-adopters. Average treatment effects also showed that climate-smart agriculture adopter households, on average, have low deprivation score in multidimensional poverty than non-adopter households. Thus this study recommended thatfarm households should adopt diversified combinations of climate-smart agriculture packages so as to be resilient, less vulnerable, food secure and to reduce multidimensional poverty.