Analysis of the determinants and impacts of off-season agriculture and intensive irrigation adoption in response to climate change among farmers in climate transition zones: Empirical analysis based on survey data from Cameroon

Abstract The main objective of this article is to analyze and evaluate the impacts of adopting off-season agriculture and intensive irrigation in response to climate change, focusing on farmers in two distinct climatic zones: the Sudanian-Sahelian zone and the tropical forest zone. To achieve this goal, we utilized data from 408 farms across these climatic areas in Cameroon. We applied a multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) model to account for selection bias. The analyses show that climatic zone is one of the main determinants of this adoption. Furthermore, empirical results highlight that the most significant positive impacts arise from the joint adoption of these two agricultural strategies in addressing climate change challenges. However, these positive impacts are significantly evident only regarding the incomes and farm yields of farmers in the tropical forest zone. In contrast, while farm productivity shows positive and significant impacts for all farmers, these effects are more pronounced for those in the Sudanian-Sahelian zone. These results emphasize the need to design tailored policies that encourage the simultaneous adoption of these strategies while considering the specificities of each climatic zone to optimize agricultural performance for farmers.