The Adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture: The Role of Information and Insurance under Climate Change

Mullins J, J Graff Zivin, A Cattaneo, A Paolantonio, and R Cavatassi, "The Adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture: The Role of Information and Insurance under Climate Change,” in Climate Smart Agriculture - Building Resilience to Climate Change, D Zilberman, L Lipper, N McCarthy, S Asfaw, and G Branca (Eds.), Springer, 2018.

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Abstract Climate change adds to the existing challenges in improving crop productivity and welfare for smallholder agricultural households by affecting the mean and variability of weather conditions and the frequency of extreme weather events. In the face of such growing uncertainty, agricultural practices of small landholders need to be adapted to better manage the changing risk structures. Since government risk management programs may complement or substitute for farmer adaptation, this chapter examines how a range of institutional interventions might assist, obstruct, channel, or change smallholder agricultural adaptation to climate change. Taken together, our results underscore the importance of the informational role of the agriculture extension, suggest that insurance can lead to significant changes in farmer planting and land management decisions, and show how information about changing conditions and insurance can be complimentary in driving changes in farmer behavior.