Strategies To Adapt To Climate Change And Farm Productivity In The Nile Basin Of Ethiopia

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the role of different climate change adaptation strategies in supporting food productivity in Ethiopia. The analysis relies on unique primary survey data on 1000 farms producing cereal crops in the Nile Basin, Ethiopia.

Based on monthly collected meteorological station data, the Thin Plate Spline method of spatial interpolation is used to impute the household specific rainfall and temperature values of each household. The rainfall data is disaggregated at season level (Meher and Belg). Econometric results show that the implementation of adaptation strategies supports farm productivity. Changing crops is found to be the most successful strategy, followed by the implementation of soil conservation and tree planting. We complement the analysis with some evidence on the determinants of adaptation. We find that extension services (both formal and farmer-to-farmer) and information on future climate changes affect positively and significantly the probability of adaptation through changing crops and tree planting. This finding highlights the crucial role played by information dissemination in improving farmers' decision-making.