Towards food security: Adoption benefits of climate-smart conservation agriculture in South-West Nigeria

Agricultural productivity increase is fundamental to meeting the rising food demand due to population growth and land degradation. This supply shortfall hinders the sufficient food production and distribution across major settlements in Nigeria. The foregoing underscores the need to investigate the adoption of climate-smart conservation agriculture (CA) in terms of perceived benefits to smallholder farmers in Nigeria. This study used dataset obtained (during 2018 agricultural season) from a household survey of 350 smallholder farmers from South-west Nigeria through a multi-stage sampling technique. The study applied proportional odds model to compare the probability of a farmer enjoying high, medium or low quantum of benefits from CA adoption, while propensity score weighting analysis was also estimated to investigate the effect (intended and unintended) of CA adoption and other important covariates on the benefits derived from CA adoption. Findings from the fitted proportional odds model revealed that: human capital (p<0.01), mode of land acquisition (p<0.05), cultivated CA farm size (p<0.1), frequency of extension visits (p<0.01), farmers' risk preference (p<0.1), density of social groups membership (p<0.1), diversity of social groups members (p<0.1) and active involvement in groups' decision making process (p<0.05) were significant predictors of quantum of perceived benefits enjoyed from CA adoption. Importantly, the omnibus brant diagnostic test indicated non-violation of the model's parallel probability curves assumptions. On the other hand, propensity score weighting estimates indicated that adopters of full CA appeared better in terms of benefits derived from CA adoption, and there was no unintended effect of CA adoption on the outcome of the non-adopter farmers in the study area. Raising public awareness on the benefits of making climate sensitive decisions and adopting climate-smart agricultural practices is paramount. Several significant findings have been revealed within the scope of this research; hence, policies to advance positive adoption decision in line with all these findings should be advanced among the smallholder farmers. Extending research investment to other regions in Nigeria should also be given attention to expand the regional comparison in adoption of CA because of regional differences in agro-ecological endowments in Nigeria.