On-farm adoption and impacts of climate-smart agricultural practices on food security of smallholder farmers in Mali

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has become a popular approach to build farmers’ adaptation capabilities to climate change effects in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Mali, a number of CSA practices have been promoted among smallholder farmers, but the literature on their adoption and impacts does not include distinct agroecological zones, distinct agronomic practices and types of crops grown. Using a multinomial logit model and a multinomial endogenous treatment effect model, we investigate the adoption of 5 CSA practices and their impacts on food security of smallholder farmers, across 4 agroecological zones and cereals and legumes farming systems in Mali. We find that, in the case of cereals farming, all 5 CSA practices are most adopted in the Sudano-Guinean zone and least adopted in the Sahelian zone, whereas in the case of legumes farming, minimum tillage, crop diversification and tree planting are least adopted in the Sudanian zone. Household size and access to extension agents are the 2 factors that positively affect the adoption of most CSA practices. Finally, minimum tillage and changing sowing dates are the only 2 CSA practices that have a positive and significant effect on food availability in households, whereas all 5 CSA practices have a positive and significant effect on dietary diversity in households. These findings show the importance of the adoption of CSA practices for improving the nutritional quality in smallholder farmers’ households. Practitioners should consider these findings when designing and implementing plans to disseminate CSA practices in Mali.