Adoption of combinations of adaptive and mitigatory climate-smart agricultural practices and its impacts on rice yield and income: Empirical evidence from Hubei, China
Zhihui Liang, Lu Zhang, Wenjing Li, Junbiao Zhang, Lynn J. Frewer
Abstract
Despite increased research and policy focus on the adoption and impact of climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) on small household farmers’ welfare, synergies between adaptive and mitigatory CSAPs are not well understood. This study responds to this knowledge gap by examines the determinants of adoption of adaptive and mitigatory CSAPs in isolation and when combined, and their impacts on rice yield and rice net income in Hubei, China. Using three-year household-level pooled cross-sectional data and addressing selection biases from both observable and unobservable heterogeneity were managed by applying a multinomial endogenous switching regression framework. Our findings indicate that adopting both adaptive and mitigatory CSAPs increases rice yield and rice net income by 15.879% and 19.288%, respectively. Besides, the strong complementarities exist between adaptive and mitigatory CSAPs to address climate change in improving productivity and income when experiencing extreme weather events (e.g., EI Niño event). These findings highlight the positive role of integrating adaptive and mitigatory CSAPs in coping with climate change challenges, and increasing household farmers’ economic welfare in China, and potentially elsewhere.