Climate-smart agricultural practices, productivity and food security among smallholder maize farmers in North West Province, South Africa.

Abstract

Various studies have shown that sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change due to its overreliance on rain-fed agricultural production. Thissphere of production is highly susceptible to the vagaries of weather and climate. Climate change impacts are increasingly affecting farming households, resulting in socio-economic problems such as hunger, low productivity and reduced incomes. Consequently, its impact on agricultural production ranges from low outputs to fluctuations in market supply and the prices of food commodities. In South Africa, changes in rainfall and temperature patterns are endangering agricultural production and have increased the vulnerability of people whose livelihoods depend on farming by disrupting food markets, endangering the food supply for the entire population, reducing poor households' dietary diversity and increasing their food insecurity access score. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a strategy for transforming and reorienting agricultural systems to support food and nutrition security in light of the new climate change realities. By increasing the adaptive capacity of producers, and the resilience and resource use efficacy of agricultural production systems, climate change threats can be mitigated. While CSA adoption has been extensively studied in the literature, its impact on the food and nutrition security in SSA, especially South Africa, remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the climate-smart agricultural practices, productivity and food security of smallholder maize farmers in South Africa. This entailed examining the complementary relationships among the adopted climate change adaptation strategies (CCAS) and the intensity of their adoption on smallholder maize farmers' productivity. It also entailedinvestigating the behavioural intentions of their adoption of the CSA practices and the associated impact on food-nutrition security (FNS). Consequently, a multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted to select 316 smallholder maize farmers from 30 villages from the lists of all smallholder maize farmers available at the district extension officers of the four municipalities (Bojanala, Ngaka Modiri Molema, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, and Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati) that comprise North-West Province, South Africa. Primary data were acquired via a field survey of the smallholder maize farmersin the North-West Province over the 2022 farming season and analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. Multivariate probit regression (MVP) was used to model the complementarity among the adopted CSA, while a Negative Binomial Regression Model (NBRM) was employed to determine its adoption intensity. To understand the association between the behavioural adoption of CSA, food productivity and FNS of farming households, an endogenous switching regression model (ESRM) was employed, while household dietary diversity scores (HDDS) and household food security scores (HFIAS) were used to determine the FNS status of the households. The socio-economic characteristics of the respondents revealed that the average age was 45 years, indicating that a large percentage were young and had the potential to contribute positively to agricultural productivity in the study area. The majority (79.00%) indicated that they had access to climate information, while about two-thirds (72.0%) had contact with extension agents,such advisory services being very important to disseminate information and encourage the adoption of new technologies for efficient production and improved farm outputs. Smallholder maize farmers in South Africa have devised a wide range of CSA strategies in response to the changing climate, including mulching (65.7%), mixed cropping (%), zero tillage (60.3%), planting cover crop (51.4%) and irrigation (52.8%). The ESRM showed that CSA had a significant impact on the net farm income of the smallholder maize farmers in North-West province. Furthermore, the MVP resultsrevealed that the complementary relationships among the multiple CSA adopted by the farmers were influenced by institutional factors (e.g. access to extension training and climate information), socio-economic attributes (household size, age and educational status) and other farm variables (farm size and access to credit). Additionally, adoption of CSA had a positive and significant impacts on their FNS, resulting in increased in HDDS by 21.3% and decrease in their HFIAS by 30.7%. The study concluded that farmers who adopt positive behavioural intentions to CSA are more likely to enhance their desire to implement such practices, with a resulting improvement in agricultural productivity and responsive to FNS. The study outcomes indicate that to achieve FAO's sustainable agricultural goals and reduce global hunger by 2030, South Africa's farmers need to develop resilience to climate change by adopting CSA to augment their food productivity. Policy interventions should therefore be focused on raising awareness among rural farmersto foster a more favourable attitude towards CSA practices. This could be enhanced through updated extension services and the integration of climate change sensitization into extension delivery methods through radio, smartphone, local newspapers as well as flyers/posters. Boosting the adoption of climate-smart practices is going to be essential to improve the resilience of farmers to climate change and FNS in the rural households.