Trade-offs, synergies and acceptability of climate smart agricultural practices by smallholder farmers in rural Ghana

Climate smart agriculture (CSA) has been promoted by governments and international development institutions as an intervention to address climate change and deliver triple wins. Yet, the trade-offs and synergies associated with CSA practices have not been explored. This study develops composite indices for prioritizing CSA practices to better inform policy about their trade-offs, synergies and acceptability. The aim of this study was to examine smallholder farmers’ uptake of CSA practices, the drivers of such uptake and the benefits (positive and negative) of CSA practices on agriculture, livelihoods and the environment. We employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process with workshop participants across two study districts in Ghana’s transitional and Sudan savannah agroecological zones. Results showed differences in CSA practices prioritized for achieving the productivity, adaptive capacity and mitigation goals between the two agroecological zones. Results also showed synergies and trade-offs associated with the implementation of CSA interventions, for example, irrigation may increase farm productivity (synergy) while contributing to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) simultaneously (trade-off). Additionally, there are various perceived acceptance and efficiency levels of CSA practices by smallholder farmers and agricultural development officers. These results have implications for the implementation of future CSA action plans in vulnerability hotspots in dryland farming systems

Why “formal” climate adaptation strategies fail in sub‐Saharan Africa: Ignoring adapters’ agency in the case of smallholding agriculture farming practices in Bono East Region of Ghana

This paper reviewed a body of literature on climate adaptation options in sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) smallholding agriculture and complemented it with a case study involving experts interviews, focus group discussions, large-scale household surveys, and farmer practices observation while drawing insight from the concept of “everyday adaptation and interrupted agency” and agency theory to assess farmer perceived limitations with climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and climate-wise food systems (CWFS) practices for climate adaptation in the SSA. The study noted that the narrow focus on CSA and/or CWFS as a silver bullet for climate change adaptation suitable for smallholding agriculture ignores food producers’ agency to undermine sustainable and inclusive adaptation solutions. Moreover, smallholder farmers’ everyday climate adaptation practices could be grouped into three categories; on-farm adaptation, off-farm adaptation, and Indigenous agroecological adaptation options. The on-farm adaptation options are usually agriculture intensification and extensification. The off-farm adaptation options include livelihood diversification activities, petty trading, seasonal labor jobs, and migration. The Indigenous agroecological adaptation strategy uses observing nature and weather elements to predict the onset of the rainy season. The study noted that smallholders’ adaptation options, which is an expression of their agency, are motivated by smallholders’ desire to be resilient to changing climate, increase productivity and income, and social network influence but not necessarily because the strategy is being promoted by the government or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Therefore, we propose a sustainable food agency (SFA)—a multifaceted blended constellation of climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, as the best approach to addressing the climate crises in the SSA. The SFA allows individuals or groups to decide what climate change adaptation options best work for them to adapt to changing climate and produce and distribute their food without undermining the economic, social, and environmental bases that generate food security and nutrition for present and future generations

Perceived stressors of climate vulnerability across scales in the Savannah zone of Ghana: a participatory approach

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with climatic and non-climatic stressors. Research attention has focused on climatic stressors, such as rainfall variability, with few empirical studies exploring non-climatic stressors and how these interact with climatic stressors at multiple scales to affect food security and livelihoods. This focus on climatic factors restricts understanding of the combinations of stressors that exacerbate the vulnerability of farming households and hampers the development of holistic climate change adaptation policies. This study addresses this particular research gap by adopting a multi-scale approach to understand how climatic and non-climatic stressors vary, and interact, across three spatial scales (household, community and district levels) to influence livelihood vulnerability of smallholder farming households in the Savannah zone of northern Ghana. This study across three case study villages utilises a series of participatory tools including semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The incidence, importance, severity and overall risk indices for stressors are calculated at the household, community, and district levels. Results show that climatic and non-climatic stressors were perceived differently; yet, there were a number of common stressors including lack of money, high cost of farm inputs, erratic rainfall, cattle destruction of crops, limited access to markets and lack of agricultural equipment that crossed all scales. Results indicate that the gender of respondents influenced the perception and severity assessment of stressors on rural livelihoods at the community level. Findings suggest a mismatch between local and district level priorities that have implications for policy and development of agricultural and related livelihoods in rural communities. Ghana’s climate change adaptation policies need to take a more holistic approach that integrates both climatic and non-climatic factors to ensure policy coherence between national climate adaptation plans and District development plans

Human adaptation to climate change in the context of forests: A systematic review

We assessed how people adapt to climate change in the context of forests through a systematic review of the international empirical research literature. We found that drought, precipitation variability, extreme precipitation and flooding, and extreme heat were the climatic stressors to which responses were most frequently documented. Individuals and households received the most research attention, followed by national government, civil society, and local government. Europe and North America were the geographic foci of more research than other regions. Behavioral responses were more reported than technical and infrastructural responses and institutional responses. Within these types of responses, actors used a wide variety of practices such as replanting, altering species composition, and adopting or changing technology. Adaptation efforts in early planning and advanced implementation received some attention, but early implementation and expanding implementation were most reported. While connections between responses and risk reduction were discussed, there is limited evidence of risk reduction. Our review contributes to the scholarly and practical understanding of how people adapt to climate change in the context of forests. The review also identifies opportunities for future research on adaptation to other climatic stressors, such as wildfires and tree pests and pathogens, adaptation in other geographic areas, especially Oceania, and adaptation by actors beyond the individual and household level and through institutional adaptation efforts

Special Report on Global warming of 1.5°C (SR15) - Chapter 5:Sustainable Development, Poverty Eradication and Reducing Inequalities

The Special Report on 1.5°C assesses three main themes: • What would be required to limit warming to 1.5°C (mitigation pathways) • The impacts of 1.5°C of warming, compared to 2ºC and higher • Strengthening the global response to climate change; mitigation and adaptation options The connections between climate change and sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty are discussed throughout the report. This chapter takes sustainable development as the starting point and focus for analysis. It considers the broad and multifaceted bi-directional interplay between sustainable development, including its focus on eradicating poverty and reducing inequality in their multidimensional aspects, and climate actions in a 1.5°C warmer world. These fundamental connections are embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The chapter also examines synergies and trade-offs of adaptation and mitigation options with sustainable development and the SDGs and offers insights into possible pathways, especially climate-resilient development pathways towards a 1.5°C warmer world

Vulnerability and adaptation of Ghana’s food production systems and rural livelihoods to climate variability

Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to be severely affected by climate change in the form of increased climate variability. Ghana provides a suitable case study country in which to assess the vulnerability of communities to such climate changes. Data on the nature and extent of vulnerability of Ghana’s food production systems and livelihoods to climate variability (particularly drought) are lacking, and this hampers the development of effective policy to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change and variability. This study aims to enhance empirical understanding of the socioeconomic, institutional and biophysical factors that contribute to vulnerability to climate change and variability amongst a range of farming households and communities in Ghana. By integrating statistical analyses, participatory methods and ecological surveys, this research adopts a multi-scale approach to assess the extent of food production and livelihood vulnerability across multiple scales: mapping vulnerability at the national and regional scales and drilling down to the community and household scales. Results show that the vulnerability of crop production to climate variability (particularly drought) has discernible geographical and socioeconomic patterns, with the Northern, Upper West and Upper East regions being most vulnerable. The results of the drought assessment are used to guide local-level research, and demonstrate the need for region-specific policies to reduce vulnerability and enhance drought preparedness within dryland farming communities. Within the same agro-ecological setting, different communities and households experience different vulnerability attributed to differences in socioeconomic characteristics. Results show that vulnerability of farming households can be linked to access to livelihood capital assets and that vulnerable communities tend to have households that are characterised by low levels of human, natural, financial, physical and social capitals. Findings also demonstrate that small-scale farmers employ a range of on-farm and off-farm adaptation strategies including changing the timing of planting, planting of drought-tolerant and early maturing varieties of crops, livelihood diversification, agro-forestry systems, crop diversification, temporary migration, relying on social networks and reducing food consumption to manage climate variability. A range of challenges including a lack of financial resources, poor access to information on climate adaptation, complex land tenure systems, social-cultural barriers, limited access to improved varieties of crops, as well as a lack of institutional support, constitute serious barriers to adaptation. Policy makers need to formulate specific and targeted climate adaptation policies that a) enable farmers to engage in alternative livelihood diversification strategies; b) promote the development and planting of improved varieties of crops; and c) allow for the provision of institutional support including access to information on climate adaptation and adequate all-year-round extension services. Such policies should be linked to programmes that foster asset building as well as enhance institutional capacity and social capital

Typologies and drivers of the adoption of climate smart agricultural practices by smallholder farmers in rural Ghana

This study examined the factors that determine the adoption of CSA practices in dryland farming systems. The study answers the following questions: (i) what are the typologies of CSA practices available to smallholder farmers in rural Ghana?, (ii) what is the adoption rate of CSA practices among smallholder farmers? and, (iii) what are the socioeconomic predictors of the adoption of CSA practices in rural Ghana? This paper employed mixed-method participatory approaches including surveys of 1061 households, and 15 key informant interviews supplemented with 2 regional stakeholder workshops. The study used a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to examine the climate smart agriculture typologies adopted among the smallholder farmers. To investigate the drivers of adoption, the multinomial ordered probit model was applied. The PCA results suggested that, there were seven (7) uncorrelated dimensions involving 23 CSA practices that were generally employed – water smart practices, energy smart practices, nutrient smart practices, carbon smart practices, weather smart practices, planting smart practices, and knowledge smart practices. These 7 typologies explained 63.91% of the total variance. The PCA results indicated that smallholder farmers do not necessarily rely on a single CSA practice to cope with climate change; but utilise a combination of practices. The results of the ordered probit model suggested that the factors driving the adoption of CSA practices are mixed nuanced on the adoption typology and farmers' location and institutional factors. The paper contributes to an understanding of the different typologies for CSA practices and highlights the various socioeconomic factors driving the adoption rates of CSA practices by smallholders' farmers. This is crucial for the upscale of CSA practices in the face of climate change in Ghana and West Africa more widely

Evidence of Climate Change Coping and Adaptation Practices by Smallholder Farmers in Northern Ghana

Evidence on how coping practices for immediate climate variations can transform into long-term adaptive capacity are relatively limited. This study addressed this gap by identifying the coping practices for short-term climate variations and the adaptation measures used by smallholder farmers to address future climate change in northeast Ghana. The paper used a mixed-methods approach, including household surveys, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Data were collected from 555 households located in six communities across three districts in northeast Ghana. Results indicated that smallholder farmers were employing a host of practices to address the threats posed by climate change. Key adaptation practices included the planting of drought-tolerant crop varieties, the use of indigenous knowledge, intensification of irrigation, migration, adjusting the planting calendar, crop diversification, mixed farming, and sustainable land management practices. On the contrary, short-term coping practices reported by the study participants included the sale of non-farm assets, complementing agriculture with non-farm jobs, selling livestock, engaging in wage labor, charcoal burning and reliance on social networks. The results further revealed that barriers to climate change adaptation and coping practices differed by gender. The paper recommends that capacities of smallholder farmers in vulnerability hotspots should be enhanced to address immediate climate variations, as well as future climate changes. Ghana’s climate change and agricultural policies should prioritize adaptations by smallholder farmers in addressing threats posed by climate change

Impacts of climate change on the yields of leguminous crops in the Guinea Savanna agroecological zone of Ghana

The impacts of climate change on crop yields are receiving renewed interest, with focus on cereals and staple crops at the regional and national scales. Yet, the impacts of climate variability on the yields of leguminous crops in the local context has not been explored. Thus, an in-depth understanding of climate change variability in the local context may support the design of locally relevant adaptation responses to current and future climate risks. This study examined the impacts of climate variables (annual rainfall, annual average temperature, rainfall indices (rainfall onset, rainfall cessation, and the length of rainy days), and the number of dry days) on the yields of leguminous crops (groundnuts, cowpeas, and soybeans) in the Guinea Savanna agroecological zone of Ghana during the period of 1989–2020. The data were analysed using Mann-Kendall's trend, Sen's slope test, correlation analysis, and Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA). The findings revealed that annual rainfall, annual average temperature, rainfall onset, rainfall cessation, and the length of rainy days, and the number of dry days all showed varied impacts on the yields of groundnuts, cowpeas, and soybeans. The trend analysis detected a marginal decrease in the amount of rainfall, rainfall onset, and the number of dry days from 1989 to 2020 (P ​> ​0.050). Annual average temperature and the length of rainy days substantially varied (P ​< ​0.050) from 1989 to 2020, showing an increasing trend. The findings also showed a marked upward trend for the yields of groundnuts, cowpeas, and soybeans during 2005–2020. The climate variables analysed above increased the yields of groundnuts, cowpeas, and soybeans by 49.0%, 55.0%, and 69.0%, respectively. The yields of groundnuts, cowpeas, and soybeans have been fluctuating with the variability of 30.0%, 28.0%, and 27.0% from 2005 to 2020, respectively. The three leguminous crops under study demonstrated unpredictable yields due to the variations of annual rainfall, annual average temperature, rainfall onset, rainfall cessation, the length of rainy days, and the number of dry days, which stressed the need for agricultural diversification, changing planting dates, using improved seed variety, and irrigation to respond to climate change. The results of this study implied that climate change considerably impacts crop production in the Guinea Savanna agroecological zone of Ghana, emphasizing the urgency of locally based and farmer-induced adaptation measures for food security and resilient agricultural systems