Climate Smart Agriculture Practices and Gender Differentiated Food and Income Security Outcomes: Evidence from Zimbabwe
摘要
This chapter examines the impact of climate smart agriculture practices on gender differentiated food and income security outcomes in Zimbabwe. In this chapter, mixed methods research design, combined with the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches, was used to evaluate the determinants of CSA adoption among women and men, measure and evaluate the impact of CSA practices and ZRBF interventions on beneficiaries’ incomes and food security status. The findings are from an unbalanced panel dataset collected over three rounds of the Outcome Monitoring Survey 1 to 3 in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively. We estimated both pooled and random effects probit to resolve the problems coming from unbalanced panels. Study findings indicate that the most common CSA practices among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe are the use of high-quality seeds, small grains, crop rotation, improved varieties, mulching and integrated pest management. The results demonstrate that ZRBF has been essential in promoting the adoption of CSA practices. Smallholder farmers participating in ZRBF projects have higher chances of adopting CSA technologies and practices. Other important factors that contribute to increasing CSA adoption are sex, age, marital status, education, household size, frequency of climate shocks and the provision of agricultural information. The findings show that women have higher probability of adopting combined CSA practices than men. In addition, the results demonstrate that CSA adopters have higher monthly incomes and have greater food security than non-adopters. The high-income variability coefficients findings point to the importance of income redistribution strategies when implementing projects such as the ZRBF. Adoption of CSA practices have some positive returns in food security, according to the research findings. There is greater food insecurity among CSA non-adopters than among adopters. The crucial implication of the findings is that CSA practices are critical in building resilience in a changing climate. These practices not only mitigate the effects of extreme weather events brought on by climate change, but they also assist impoverished farmers in reducing the effects of unstable food prices brought on by other natural calamities like the Covid-19 pandemic. The government and developmental organizations or non-governmental organizations should promote dissemination of relevant agricultural information to communities, particularly on climate change–related aspects. This will encourage the adoption of CSA practices, which will strengthen resilience building and increase household food and income security. In this regard, the role of extension education is critical. The higher probability of adoption of CSA by women requires that their needs be taken into consideration at the design stage of CSA policies, programs and projects to avoid disrupting their food and income security outcomes. We also recommend consideration of income redistribution strategies when implementing projects such as the ZRBF so as not to weaken beneficiaries’ resilience capacity against adverse weather conditions, pandemics such as Covid-19 and other extreme events, including macroeconomic price instability.