Assessing the economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture and its implications for political economy: A case study in Southern Africa

Giacomo Branca; Aslihan Arslan; Adriana Paolantonio; Uwe Grewer; Andrea Cattaneo; Romina Cavatassi; Leslie Lipper; Jonathan Hillier; Sylvia Vetter

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125161

Assessing the economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture and its implications for political economy: A case study in Southern Africa

Giacomo Branca^*, Aslihan Arslan, Adriana Paolantonio, Uwe Grewer, Andrea Cattaneo, Romina Cavatassi, Leslie Lipper, Jonathan Hillier, Sylvia Vetter

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

36 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Climate change poses a serious risk to the economic growth of sub-Saharan Africa. Sustainable enhancement of resilience and mitigation capacity of small farm households is a major political economy goal. This paper has the objective to assess the on-farm economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture production and their cost-effectiveness to be used as a prioritization criterion for policy incentives. An interdisciplinary model which integrates elements of economics and ecological science at farm-scale is developed and applied using a unique dataset for Malawi and Zambia built through household surveys. Results show that switching from conventional to climate-smart farming enhances economic returns more significantly in semi-dry areas than in sub-humid ones. However, high up-front costs hinder technology adoption. Negative abatement costs for most smart farming options indicate synergies between livelihood enhancement and mitigation. Land management based on minimum tillage, crop residues incorporation, use of cover crops, and inclusion of legumes has relatively higher economic returns. Agroforestry provides lower economic returns but the highest emission abatement potential. Payments for mitigation benefits could be a management strategy to incentivize cleaner agriculture production if tailored appropriately. These results strengthen the case for public support to climate-smart agriculture scaling-up within policy and planning strategies.

Original language	English
Article number	125161
Number of pages	14
Journal	Journal of Cleaner Production
Volume	285
Early online date	30 Nov 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125161
Publication status	Published - 20 Feb 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge support from the project: ‘Climate-smart agriculture in Malawi, Zambia and Vietnam’, co-funded by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and European Commission (EC) for the 2012–15 period.

The authors wish to thank: the Handling Editor and the four anonymous reviewers for their thorough reading of the manuscript and the useful comments that have helped to significantly improve the work; and Dr. Chiara Perelli (Tuscia University, Italy) for her precious help with the infographics.

Keywords

Cost-effective mitigation
Ecological-economic model
Marginal abatement cost
Smallholder farming
Sustainable agriculture
SMALLHOLDER FARMERS
DELIVER
POLICY
ADOPTION
SOIL
INNOVATIONS
CHALLENGES

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125161Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

Branca, G., Arslan, A., Paolantonio, A., Grewer, U., Cattaneo, A., Cavatassi, R., Lipper, L., Hillier, J., & Vetter, S. (2021). Assessing the economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture and its implications for political economy: A case study in Southern Africa. Journal of Cleaner Production, 285, Article 125161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125161

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title = "Assessing the economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture and its implications for political economy: A case study in Southern Africa",

abstract = "Climate change poses a serious risk to the economic growth of sub-Saharan Africa. Sustainable enhancement of resilience and mitigation capacity of small farm households is a major political economy goal. This paper has the objective to assess the on-farm economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture production and their cost-effectiveness to be used as a prioritization criterion for policy incentives. An interdisciplinary model which integrates elements of economics and ecological science at farm-scale is developed and applied using a unique dataset for Malawi and Zambia built through household surveys. Results show that switching from conventional to climate-smart farming enhances economic returns more significantly in semi-dry areas than in sub-humid ones. However, high up-front costs hinder technology adoption. Negative abatement costs for most smart farming options indicate synergies between livelihood enhancement and mitigation. Land management based on minimum tillage, crop residues incorporation, use of cover crops, and inclusion of legumes has relatively higher economic returns. Agroforestry provides lower economic returns but the highest emission abatement potential. Payments for mitigation benefits could be a management strategy to incentivize cleaner agriculture production if tailored appropriately. These results strengthen the case for public support to climate-smart agriculture scaling-up within policy and planning strategies.",

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note = "Funding Information: The authors acknowledge support from the project: {\textquoteleft}Climate-smart agriculture in Malawi, Zambia and Vietnam{\textquoteright}, co-funded by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and European Commission (EC) for the 2012–15 period. The authors wish to thank: the Handling Editor and the four anonymous reviewers for their thorough reading of the manuscript and the useful comments that have helped to significantly improve the work; and Dr. Chiara Perelli (Tuscia University, Italy) for her precious help with the infographics. ",

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AU - Branca, Giacomo

AU - Arslan, Aslihan

AU - Paolantonio, Adriana

AU - Grewer, Uwe

AU - Cattaneo, Andrea

AU - Cavatassi, Romina

AU - Lipper, Leslie

AU - Hillier, Jonathan

AU - Vetter, Sylvia

N1 - Funding Information: The authors acknowledge support from the project: ‘Climate-smart agriculture in Malawi, Zambia and Vietnam’, co-funded by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and European Commission (EC) for the 2012–15 period. The authors wish to thank: the Handling Editor and the four anonymous reviewers for their thorough reading of the manuscript and the useful comments that have helped to significantly improve the work; and Dr. Chiara Perelli (Tuscia University, Italy) for her precious help with the infographics.

PY - 2021/2/20

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N2 - Climate change poses a serious risk to the economic growth of sub-Saharan Africa. Sustainable enhancement of resilience and mitigation capacity of small farm households is a major political economy goal. This paper has the objective to assess the on-farm economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture production and their cost-effectiveness to be used as a prioritization criterion for policy incentives. An interdisciplinary model which integrates elements of economics and ecological science at farm-scale is developed and applied using a unique dataset for Malawi and Zambia built through household surveys. Results show that switching from conventional to climate-smart farming enhances economic returns more significantly in semi-dry areas than in sub-humid ones. However, high up-front costs hinder technology adoption. Negative abatement costs for most smart farming options indicate synergies between livelihood enhancement and mitigation. Land management based on minimum tillage, crop residues incorporation, use of cover crops, and inclusion of legumes has relatively higher economic returns. Agroforestry provides lower economic returns but the highest emission abatement potential. Payments for mitigation benefits could be a management strategy to incentivize cleaner agriculture production if tailored appropriately. These results strengthen the case for public support to climate-smart agriculture scaling-up within policy and planning strategies.

AB - Climate change poses a serious risk to the economic growth of sub-Saharan Africa. Sustainable enhancement of resilience and mitigation capacity of small farm households is a major political economy goal. This paper has the objective to assess the on-farm economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture production and their cost-effectiveness to be used as a prioritization criterion for policy incentives. An interdisciplinary model which integrates elements of economics and ecological science at farm-scale is developed and applied using a unique dataset for Malawi and Zambia built through household surveys. Results show that switching from conventional to climate-smart farming enhances economic returns more significantly in semi-dry areas than in sub-humid ones. However, high up-front costs hinder technology adoption. Negative abatement costs for most smart farming options indicate synergies between livelihood enhancement and mitigation. Land management based on minimum tillage, crop residues incorporation, use of cover crops, and inclusion of legumes has relatively higher economic returns. Agroforestry provides lower economic returns but the highest emission abatement potential. Payments for mitigation benefits could be a management strategy to incentivize cleaner agriculture production if tailored appropriately. These results strengthen the case for public support to climate-smart agriculture scaling-up within policy and planning strategies.

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KW - Ecological-economic model

KW - Marginal abatement cost

KW - Smallholder farming

KW - Sustainable agriculture

KW - SMALLHOLDER FARMERS

KW - DELIVER

KW - POLICY

KW - ADOPTION

KW - SOIL

KW - INNOVATIONS

KW - CHALLENGES

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SN - 0959-6526

VL - 285

JO - Journal of Cleaner Production

JF - Journal of Cleaner Production

M1 - 125161

ER -

Assessing the economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture and its implications for political economy: A case study in Southern Africa

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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