This paper examines the impact of agriculture-related shocks on consumption patterns of rural farming households using 3 years of data from South Africa. We make two key observations.

The Economics and Environment for Development Research Program (EEfD) at CATIE is leading a series of studies on decision-making under risk. We address the issue of adaptation to climate change from the perspective of how farmers’ attitudes towards risk, affect the adoption of different adaptation strategies, including crop insurance demand, and in the light of the recent coffee rust epidemic in Central America.

Climate and weather variability in sub-Saharan Africa disproportionately leave female-headed households food insecure. However, the extent and reasons for these gender differences are, thus far, not well understood. This study examines gender-food-climate connections using longitudinal data from rural households in north-eastern South Africa. Results confirm gender distinctions in that male-headed households are more food secure. Importantly, however, female-headed households are not a homogenous group.

This study examines the role of gender of the head of household on the
food security of small-scale subsistence farmers in urban and rural areas of
South Africa, using the exogenous switching treatment-effects regression
framework.

In developing countries such as Ethiopia, rural households spend a considerable part of their time in agriculture as well as resource collection.  However, rigorous empirical studies on the impacts of scarcity of environmental resources on productive activities such as agriculture are very limited—in developing countries in general and Africa in particular. Using a panel data set collected from Ethiopia, this paper examines the effect of scarcity of fuelwood and water on time spent in agriculture.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, climate change is set to hit the agricultural sector the most severely and cause suffering, particularly for smallholder farmers. To cushion themselves against potential welfare losses, smallholder farmers need to recognize the changes already taking place in their climate and undertake appropriate investments in adaptation. This study investigates whether these smallholder farmers in Tanzania recognize climate change and, consequently, adapt to it in their agricultural activities.