Can smallholder farmers adapt to climate variability, and how effective are policy interventions? Agent-based simulation results for Ethiopia

Publication Type

Journal contribution (peer reviewed)

Authors

Berger, T., Troost, C., Wossen, T., Latynskiy, E., Tesfaye, K., Gbegbelegbe, S.

Year of publication

2017

Published in

Agricultural Economics

DOI

10.1111/agec.12367

Keywords

sustainability

Climate variability with unexpected droughts and floods causes serious production losses and worsens food security, especially in Sub-SaharanAfrica. This study applies stochastic bioeconomic modeling to analyze smallholder adaptation to climate and price variability in Ethiopia. It usesthe agent-based simulation package Mathematical Programming-based Multi-Agent Systems (MPMAS) to capture nonseparable production andconsumption decisions at household level, considering livestock and eucalyptus sales for consumption smoothing, as well as farmer responses topolicy interventions. We find the promotion of new maize and wheat varieties to be an effective adaptation option, on average, especially whenaccompanied by policy interventions such as credit and fertilizer subsidy. We also find that the effectiveness of available adaptation options is quitedifferent across the heterogeneous smallholder population in Ethiopia. This implies that policy assessments based on average farm households maymislead policy makers to adhere to interventions that are beneficial on average albeit ineffective in addressing the particular needs of poor and foodinsecure farmers