How African Agriculture Can Adapt to Climate Change? A Counterfactual Analysis from Ethiopia

We analyze and compare the impact of different adaptation strategies on crop net revenues in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia.

We implement a counterfactual analysis, and estimate a multinomial endogenous switching regression model of climate change adaptation and crop net revenues. We combine data from 1,000 farm households with spatial climate data at the farm household level in Ethiopia. We find that adaptation to climate change based upon a combination of strategies -opposed to strategies adopted in isolation- increases farm net revenues. In particular, the combinations of changing crops with water or soil conservation strategies deliver the highest pay off.

This article has been peer-reviewed on the Journal of Land Economics.