Is the Climate Changing for the Climate-Smart? A study on Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), Resilience and Hunger

Abstract: Could the use of CSA practices stabilize the hunger crisis? Despite the general understanding that CSA practices increase farmers' food security, its resilience to climatic shocks is much less understood. To address this gap, this study analyzes the effect of three CSA practices: inorganic fertilization, intercropping and improved seeding on maize productivity in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. By using plot-level panel data collected within the three countries between 2010-2012, the analysis suggests that inorganic fertilization and intercropping are positively associated with increased productivity (kg/acre), increasing maize yields by 32 and 63 percent, respectively. Climatic shocks, while decreasing maize productivity across all plots, were less severe in plots where inorganic fertilization and intercropping occurred. Aside from the plot-level analysis, this study also adds a new layer of granularity to the literature, namely the analysis on the agroecological zone level, allowing the conclusions to extend beyond national borders and thus contributing to the generalization of the findings.