Switching up climate-smart agriculture adoption: Do "green" subsidies, insurance, risk aversion and impatience matter?

    Collection:
    Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
    Contributers:
    Ngoma, Hambulo (author), Mason-Wardell, Nichole M. (author), Samboko, Paul C. (author), and Hangoma, Peter (author)
    Format:
    Research summary
    Publication Date:
    2019
    URL:
    https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/303060
    Published:
    Zambia: Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing.
    Location:
    Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 166 Document Number: D11674
    Subject Term:
    adoption, agricultural development, conservation, decision making, development issues, environment, environmental communication, extension, extension communication, extension programs, extension services, farmers, farming methods, incentives, information issues, information needs, risk assessment, risk communication, climate, climate change, Zambia (Africa, Eastern), subsidies, and extension issues
    Notes:
    4 pages., Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy, Research Paper 164., Using games, researchers tested the hypothesis that innate behavioral traits such as risk and time preferences play a role in Zambia farmers' decisions about adoption of Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. "Given our findings that more risk-averse individuals are less likely to adopt CSA, a practice that is intended to be risk-reducing, a key policy implication is the need for a retooling of both public and private extension services to better demonstrate and educate farmers on the risk-reducing effect of CSA practices such as conservation agriculture. Moreover, if insurance and subsidies are to be used successfully to nudge adoption, extension will need to educate farmers on the structure of and mechanisms of payouts. This is important to build trust in the incentive systems.

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