Does the uptake of multiple climate smart agriculture practices enhance household savings, food security and household vulnerability to climate change? Insights from Zimbabwe

Climate change and variability poses a significant hindrance on agricultural productivity. The adverse effects are particularly concerning in many African countries that rely more on rainfed subsistence agriculture for livelihood. The promotion of climate smart agriculture technologies as a pathway to enhancing food security, farmer’s welfare, and providing climate adaptation and mitigation benefits is one of the several interventions aimed at improving agricultural productivity. However, there has been a dearth of evidence on the determinants of adoption of climate smart agriculture practices as well as the impact of climate smart agriculture practices on food security and household welfare. This paper contributes to this knowledge gap by using the probit model to explore the drivers of uptake of climate smart agriculture practices and the inverse probability weighting regression model and the instrumental variable approach to assess the impact on food security and household savings and household vulnerability. We find that the adoption of climate smart agriculture practices among smallholder farmers is influenced by land ownership, climatic variables, land terrain, and household sociodemographic characteristics. The study further revealed that adoption of climate smart agriculture practices leads to reduction in household savings and household vulnerability but leads to improved food security. The findings suggest the need to promote climate smart agriculture practices aimed at livestock management, enhanced agricultural extension work and reduced resource constraints that inhibit farmer’s capacity to adopt complementary practices among others.