Keywords: climate-smart agriculture, agricultural transformation, climate risk management, welfare metrics, postharvest storage, Sub-Saharan Africa

“Essays on the Impacts of Climate-Smart Agricultural Innovations on Household Welfare”

Rural households in Sub-Saharan Africa face several microeconomic challenges including food crisis of many dimensions. These households are often at the front lines of climate variability and extremes, which expose them to environmental and economic risks. In a disconcerting paradox, these particularly vulnerable households are mostly disconnected from credit, insurance and output markets. This research investigates the decisions agricultural households make in land and crop management, crop portfolio choices and postharvest storage to cope with the risks they encounter and improve their livelihood.  The study finds that climate-smart land and crop management innovations, mainly conservation agriculture, crop diversification, and crop storage technologies improve agricultural performance, household welfare and risk coping capacity. The findings suggest that agricultural transformation through use of sustainable and climate-smart technologies and practices could be a way forward to rural development and prosperity, than a rigid focus on existing model of agriculture.