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The promotion of climate-resilient practices (CRPs) requires the development of the capacity of farmers to adopt these practices owing to the knowledge-intensive nature of technologies. Extension services serve as a conduit for facilitating the conceptualization of CRPs and are instrumental in improving the resiliency and mitigation of climate change. We used a social-ecological framework and a multivariate probit model to analyze the drivers of the CRP uptake in moisture-stressed areas in Ethiopia, with a particular focus on extension services. Unlike previous studies that investigated a single technology, we considered a bundle of technologies. We focused on the use of two capital-intensive CRPs (drought-resistant seed and inorganic fertilizer) and four knowledge-intensive CRPs (minimum tillage, farmyard manure, water-saving technology, and crop residue retention). The role of extension services in promoting other CRPs beyond input and capital-intensive technologies was insignificant. Heterogeneity analysis revealed that the correlation between extension services and the adoption of other knowledge-intensive natural resource management practices holds irrespective of the proximity to the extension service providers. This finding highlights the need for targeted and tailored interventions that support farmers to address the challenges faced by them in moisture-stressed areas. Accordingly, we propose continuously improving the ability of the extension service providers to promote climate-change adaptation knowledge and practices. This should be accompanied by efforts to strengthen a pluralistic extension system, improve land tenure security, and decrease transaction costs for farmers through output market linkages.

Despite the numerous advantages of soil fertility management (SFM) practices and substantial investments to promote adoption, uptake of these technologies remains low across sub-Saharan Africa. We study the adoption and intensity of key SFM practices - improved fallow, animal manure, compost, crop residue retention, minimum tillage, inorganic fertilizer, and intercropping among rural farmers in Zambia. Data from 1234 rural farms and the multivariate probit (MVP) and generalized Poisson regression models are used. The MVP model highlights interconnections among practices, emphasizing the need for integrated interventions. Socio-demographics like gender, age, education, and household labor availability significantly influence adoption of SFM practices. Farm characteristics including experience, land ownership, livestock, and off-farm income also play pivotal roles. Accessibility of information via phones, radio, and farmer groups emerged as a crucial enabler, while extension services, credit, and proximity to markets and roads shape adoption decisions. Results indicate education, household labor, off-farm income, and group membership drive intensity of adoption. Extension contacts, training, and agro-ecological region location also affect intensity with regional variations. Key policy implications emerge. First, the complementarities among practices underscore the need for holistic strategies recognizing these synergies. Second, enhancing education specifically for younger farmers can promote adoption of SFM technologies by increasing knowledge. Third, spurring farmer groups facilitates knowledge exchange, input access, and collaborative adoption. Fourth, strategic extension services and training programs are vital to address knowledge gaps for sustained adoption. Overall, this study provides insights to guide policies for promoting SFM practices among rural farms.

Climate change and soil fertility decline are major hurdles to agricultural ecosystems. Despite the importance of climate-resilient practices (CRPs) in enhancing food security, poverty alleviation and nutritional security, awareness and adoption remain low in most developing countries, including Kenya. We assessed the determinants of simultaneous awareness and adoption of CRPs and their intensity in Central Highlands of Kenya. The CRPs considered in this study were inorganic fertilizer and manure integration, manure, mulching, crop residues, cover crop, crop rotation and intercrop. The study used a cross-sectional survey design and collected data from 400 smallholders in Central Highlands of Kenya. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, multivariate probit and Poisson regression. Our findings showed that awareness and adoption of specific CRPs and their intensity were determined by occupation, age, farming experience, household size, soil fertility management, climate change adaptation, agricultural training, and geographical location. Smallholders’ agricultural training was an important determinant of awareness, adoption level, and intensity. Our findings underscored the need for agricultural policymakers and extension systems to design farmer-driven training programs for enhanced awareness and adoption of CRPs.

Despite global and developing countries' efforts to address maltreatment across various sectors, limited attention has been given to its impact on agriculture. This study investigates the effects of maltreatment of smallholder youth farmers specifically physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse on agricultural productivity among smallholder youth farmers. Employing a statistical research design, data from the Tanzania Integrated Labor Force Survey 2020/21 are analyzed. The study utilizes a Multivariate Probit (MVP) model to estimate determinants of maltreatment, and instrumental variable models (Two Stage Least Squares, Two Stage Residual Inclusion, and Control Function Approach) to estimate the effects of maltreatment on agricultural productivity with proximity to local law enforcement as an instrument to control endogeneity. The results reveal that Tanga (21.46%), Morogoro (17.08%), Kilimanjaro (17.06%), and Dodoma (15.00%) exhibit a high prevalence of maltreatment practices among youths, whereas Geita, Kusini Pemba, Kusini Unguja, Mjini Magharibi, Njombe, Rukwa, Simiyu, and Tabora display relatively few instances. Furthermore, factors such as gender, age, residence, and disabilities are key determinants of maltreatment. Additionally, maltreatment has varying effects in reducing agricultural productivity significantly such that physical abuse (β = −0.2315, p < 0.01), sexual abuse (β = −0.4281, p < 0.01), and emotional abuse (β = −0.1965, p < 0.01). This study implies that addressing maltreatment is crucial for enhancing the well-being and productivity of smallholder youth farmers. Moreover, it informs policy on the need for targeted interventions to mitigate maltreatment and recommends gender-sensitive agricultural policies, rural development initiatives, educational and skill-building programs, disability-inclusive policies, workplace support, and mental health resources, and the integration of technology for sustainable agricultural practices.

Frequent climate variability and change had the strongest direct influences on the availability and accessibility of food through reducing agricultural productivity and cropping patterns. Despite the Ethiopian government having made substantial efforts to boost production and productivity through the introduction of Climate Smart Agriculture Practices (CSAPs), the implementation of these practices by smallholder wheat farmers has remained low. This study, therefore, tried to investigate the determinants of the adoption of CSAPs in Northwestern Ethiopia. The primary data were gathered from 385 randomly selected wheat producers (including 702 plot-level observations). The CSAPs considered in this investigation were wheat row planting, crop rotation, and improved wheat varieties. The factors that influence the adoption of CSAPs were determined using a multivariate probit (MVP) model. The results revealed that the age of the sampled wheat producer farmers, education level of sampled wheat farmers, livestock holding, contact with development agents, credit access, off-farm activities participation, distance to input supply institution, slope of the plot, and soil fertility status of the plot were the major determinants of the adoption of CSAPs. The study suggested that policy-makers and stakeholders should strengthen farmers’ skills by providing sufficient and effective short-term training. Moreover, encouraging mixed crop-livestock production systems, strengthening credit access, development agents, and access to near-input supply institutions are required to scale-up the adoption of CSAPs.

Increasing agricultural productivity through the uptake of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) offers a credible pathway to addressing food insecurity while preserving vital ecosystem resources, as such, factors that drive farmers' decisions to adopt these SAPs need examination. Most extant studies, on the adoption of SAPs, however, tend to place emphasis on socioeconomic incentives, giving little attention to the role of professional networks and institutional factors especially on oil palm which has strong links to deforestation and reduction in tree cover despite the numerous economic benefits. Using cross-sectional data from six oil palm producing regions in Ghana, this study analyses the role of producer membership, links with institutions such as NGOs, and extension access in the adoption of improved seeds, fertilizers, pest management practices, soil and moisture conservation practices, and legume cover crops among oil palm farmers in Ghana. The study employs a multivariate probit model to examine the probability of adopting SAPs and a poisson regression to model the intensity of SAPs adopted. The study also uses the instrumental variable approach to circumvent the issue of endogeneity. Results indicate that these networks and institutions significantly affect farmers’ adoption of SAPs. The study also finds heterogeneous associations with the adoption decisions depending on the type of innovation. In particular, we show evidence that farmers’ link with formal institutions is negatively associated with the adoption of diverse input intensive technologies, whereas it is positively associated with the adoption of natural resource management technologies. However, we find a consistent positive association of membership of producer organization on the adoption of different SAPs except legume cover cropping. Though differing relationships, we find that extension access and membership of producer organization are significantly associated with the intensity of SAPs adoption. Taken together, our findings suggest an integrated approach by the actors in the promotion of SAPs.

Smallholder households in developing countries often face challenges related to market access. Despite being proposed as a potential solution, cooperatives in the north of Benin have reportedly failed to effectively address this issue. The alternatives channels used by smallholder famers and the factors that influence their choices remain unclear. This paper adopts a mixed approach, combining qualitative analysis with quantitative methods, particularly the multivariate probit model, to investigate the distribution channels of maize used by farmers in the Kandi district of Benin. The study aims to identify the current distribution channels of maize in Kandi and analyze factors that affect, smallholder producers choice of marketing channel. Initially, the study identified four primary channels for marketing maize—namely, collectors, wholesalers, brokers, and cooperatives—and producers typically commonly engage in multiple channels simultaneously. Subsequently, It becomes evident that factors such as age, cooperative membership, distance to market, reliance on informal credit, average maize bag prices, and the timing of sales significantly influence producers' selection of marketing channels. Interestingly, despite cooperatives offering comparatively higher prices, the majority of farmers opt for collectors due to the informal credit they provide and their practice of purchasing large volumes of maize bags at pre-agreed prices. In conclusion, enhancing joint-selling capabilities of cooperatives and establishing a credit provision business tailored to maize producers are identified as crucial steps. These measures aim to alleviate producers’ financial strain, diminish their dependence on collectors for credit, and bolster their bargaining power in the market.

Given that Ethiopian agriculture is seriously threatened by climate change, understanding the factors that influencing the adoption of various climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices supports policy interventions to reduce negative effects of climate change. Therefore, this study was aimed at exploring determinants of the adoption of multiple CSA practices by focusing on crop production. This study used data from 271 randomly selected smallholder farmers from the Gamo, Gofa and Konso zones of Southern Ethiopia, and a multivariate probit (MVP) model was used to analyze the data. Crop diversification, irrigation, drought-tolerant and early-maturing crop varieties, integrated soil fertility management, and integrated pest management were prominent CSA practices to improve crop productivity, increase adaptivity capacity, and mitigate the adverse climate change effects in the study area. The study's findings indicate that the adoption of CSA practices varies considerably between farmers and agroecology. The MVP simulation result reveals that farmers’ adoption decisions for CSA practices are highly interdependent, indicating that farmers adopt two or more adaptation and mitigation strategies as mutual CSA practices. Furthermore, the regression result reveals that the education level of farmers, extension contact, accessing climate variability information, access to irrigation facilities, and social group participation were similar underlying factors that affected the adoption decision of CSA practices. By providing climate change information, respective organizations should encourage farmers to utilize available alternate irrigation access and climate-resilient crop varieties. In addition, strengthening social norms through agricultural cooperatives and training on the application of integrated pest management and soil fertility management are suggested to spur farmers' CSA uptake.

Efforts have been made on promoting improved chickpea technologies. However, the result is not that much impressive. This study aimed to analyze drivers of technology adoption. 224 respondents were used for this study. Multivariate Probit (MVP) and Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) models were employed. The results from MVP model, marginal success probability of adoption decision were 60%, 19%, and 17% for a variety, bio-inoculant, and chemical fertilizer, respectively. Distance from farmers' training center, farm income, livestock holding, and field day participation have significantly affected for adoption of chickpea varieties. A social network, market information, and field day participation have significantly influenced the adoption of bio-inoculant fertilizer. In addition, household size, asset owned, and field day participation has significantly influenced the adoption of chemical fertilizer. Field day participation was the most important variable for the adoption decision of chickpea technologies as a package. The results from SUR model, farmers' training center distance, farm income, livestock holding, social network and agricultural training have significantly influenced adoption intensity of improved varieties. Age, farming experience, livestock holding, social network, education status, and field day and training participation have significantly influenced the intensity of bio-inoculant adoption. In addition, Age, education status, radio owned, training participation, asset owned and farmer's perception have significantly influenced the intensity of chemical fertilizer adoption. Training participation is the most determinant factor for adoption intensity of improved technologies. Hence, government should emphasize on improving of extension services, provision of education, encouraging livestock rearing, strengthening credit access for farmers, strengthening rural infrastructure, and considering community social network for adoption of chickpea technologies.

Issues of food insufficiency among smallholder cocoa farming households persist due to low attention paid to food crops production. Employing multivariate probit technique on cross sectional data collected from cocoa farmers in Ghana, the study assessed dynamics in acceptance of four complementary agricultural technologies including improved variety, inorganic fertilizer, row planting and plant spacing. Socioeconomic and institutional factors impeding acceptance of technologies were identified. The suggestions are that, timely supply of inputs and relaxation of rules of acquisition of credit should be established. Institutional factors could be tackled more by adequately resourcing research and extension linkage systems in the developments and dissemination of improved agricultural technologies.

This study examines the drivers of improved livestock management practices (ILMP) adoption in rural Bangladesh using data from the International Food Policy Research Institute's (IFPRI) Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS). This study investigated four improved management practices: artificial insemination, concentrate feed, vaccination, and deworming. The binary logit and multivariate probit (MVP) models were used to analyse the data. According to the findings, approximately 65% of farmers practiced deworming, but only about 20% of farmers vaccinated their livestock. Logit regression analysis suggested that rural households with mobile phones and televisions were 5.2% and 3.8% more likely to adopt. Furthermore, compared to their peers, farmers who have maintained contact with livestock extension agents are 11% more likely to adopt. The MVP model indicated that likelihood of using concentrate feed increases with income, while artificial insemination is more prevalent among farmers who raise livestock for sale. Policy implication included the need for more extension agent-delivered awareness development programmes to educate livestock farmers on the benefits of ILMP. Scale-appropriate management practices can also play an important role. Farmers should be guaranteed of the availability of livestock feed and veterinary services at reasonable prices to promote adoption.

Nowadays, a combination of natural and man-made factors has led to a decline in the physical and chemical quality of the soil. In Ethiopia, declining soil fertility and quality that lead to low agricultural production are made worse by soil erosion and nutrient depletion. Adoption and implementation of integrated soil fertility management strategies have emerged as inevitabilities in terms of development in Ethiopia generally and in the Tana sub-basin of northwest Ethiopia specifically. This study was created to evaluate the Megech watershed's integrated smallholder soil fertility management methods' adoption factors, status, and scope. A total of 380 individual farmers were surveyed using a semi-structured questionnaire to gather primary data. Descriptive statistics and econometric estimating methods were combined in the study. The findings supported the use of inorganic fertilizer, tree planting, organic fertilizer, stone bunds, and soil bunds by households as the primary methods for managing soil fertility. The outcomes of the econometric model also show that households' adoption decisions for integrated soil fertility management practices are highly interdependent. Additionally, there were similar underlying factors that affected the status and intensity of implementing integrated soil fertility management practices. The research concluded that effective soil management policies and programs should be designed, and implemented by smallholder farmers, agricultural experts, research centers, and governmental and non-governmental organizations to improve the quality of soil for sustainable food production. Moreover, raising the affordability of financial services and strengthening smallholder farmers' access to education help to increase their income, which in turn encourages the use of integrated soil fertility management practices.

Adoption of appropriate climate smart innovations is the major step towards enhancing food security, building climate resilience capacity as well as reducing or removing GHG emissions from smallholder farms to sustainably maintain agricultural livelihoods. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the rate, intensity, and determinants of multiple adoptions of climate-smart agriculture innovations among smallholder farmers in Ethiopia's Upper Blue Nile Highlands. All Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) innovations have a synergistic effect on the adoption of other innovations, with the exception of Soil and Water Conservation (SWC). The economic constraint model demonstrated that farm size, number of plots, and access to financial services influence crop residue management, crop rotation, and agroforestry adoption. Hence, a larger number of plots, a larger total farm size, and access to rural savings and credit increase the probability of adoption. The diffusion innovation model, on the other hand, asserted that frequent extension visits, market access, access to information communication, social networks, and strong tenure security have no less of an impact on the adoption of CSA innovations such as improved variety, crop residue management, crop rotation, compost, SWC, and agroforestry. Furthermore, farmers' perceived technology-specific characteristics of CSA innovations increase the likelihood of adoption. Hence, formal education, more awareness about climate change and CSA, and the ability of CSA innovations to reduce the impact of climate change risks such as rising temperatures, increased hailstorms, and increased erratic rainfall have significantly increased the likelihood of adoption. The integrated technology adoption model explains the determinants of adopting multiple CSA innovations simultaneously. Livelihood asset building programs, strong public extension systems via mobile phone, voice messaging, and radio enhance adoption. Policy to identify and scale up a portfolio of farm-level specific CSA innovations is required.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an important strategy for supporting farmers against climate change challenges. However, CSA adoption among smallholder farmers particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains low. This article investigates the factors that influence CSA adoption among smallholder potato farmers in Nyandarua County, Kenya. We specifically focus on the role of the farmers’ entrepreneurial orientation (reflected in the farmers’ innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking), a contribution that has received limited research attention. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 350 potato farming households and analyzed using descriptive statistics, principal component analysis (PCA) and a multivariate probit regression model. Based on PCA analysis, the study considered six categories of CSA practices; soil nutrient management, crop management, crop protection, seed management, water harvesting, and crop quality improvement. The multivariate probit results show that farmers' entrepreneurial orientation had mixed influence on CSA adoption. While farmers’ innovativeness had a positive influence on crop management and improvement practices uptake, its influence on water harvesting technologies was negative. Similarly, proactive farmers were more likely to adopt seed management practices, whereas risk-takers were more likely to adopt protection and water harvesting technologies. Potato producers' willingness to engage in seed multiplication was linked to use of crop protection, seed management, and water harvesting technologies, indicating a path that could help potato farmers’ access clean seed. Other important factors influencing CSA adoption included access to financing through mobile-based applications, gender, land size, trust in extension officers, household income, and farm characteristics. The study discusses the implications of these findings.

Climate smart agriculture (CSA) technologies are innovations meant to reduce the risks in agricultural production among smallholder farmers. Among the factors that influence farmer adoption of agricultural technologies are farmers' risk attitudes and household livelihood diversification. This study, focused on determining how farmers' risk attitudes and household livelihood diversification influenced the adoption of CSA technologies in the Nyando basin. The study utilized primary data from 122 households from two administrative regions of Kisumu and Kericho counties in Kenya. The study employed the multivariate probit (MVP) and ordered probit (OP) models and descriptive statistics in data analysis using Stata 14.0. Results from the study indicated that farmers’ risk attitudes had a significant negative influence in the adoption of terraces, ridges and bunds as well as the intensity of adoption of given CSA technologies. Household livelihood diversification had a significant negative influence in the adoption of stress tolerant livestock but did not have a significant effect on the intensity of adoption of given CSA technologies. The study recommends that relevant stakeholders should introduce an appropriate agricultural index insurance product to Nyando basin farmers to encourage the broader adoption of CSA technologies.

Why do many smallholder farmers fail to adopt what appear to be relatively simple agronomic or management practices which can help them cope with climate-induced stressors? Using household and plot level data collected in 2011, we implement a multivariate probit model to assess the determinants of farmer adaptation behavior to climatic risks and the relative contribution of information, credit and education on the probability of adopting specific practices in response to adverse changes in weather patterns. We find that plot characteristics, credit constraints and availability of climate-related information explain the adoption of several of these practices. In relative terms, we also find that even when financial limitations are binding, making climate-related information available can still motivate farmers to adapt. Policy implications are that the deepening of extension access with information on the appropriate adaptation strategies is crucial to help farmers make adaptation choices. The need to foster credit markets for easy accessibility and affordability by farmers or otherwise strengthening access to assets is also important.