On-farm adoption and impacts of climate-smart agricultural practices on food security of smallholder farmers in Mali

On-farm adoption and impacts of climate-smart agricultural practices on food security of smallholder farmers in Mali | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article On-farm adoption and impacts of climate-smart agricultural practices on food security of smallholder farmers in Mali Abel-Gautier Kouakou, Abdullahi I. Tofa, Dioukou Sissoko, Mamadou Coulibaly, and 2 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7178009/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 30 Apr, 2026 Read the published version in Food Security → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has become a popular approach to build farmers’ adaptation capabilities to climate change effects in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Mali, a number of CSA practices have been promoted among smallholder farmers, but the literature on their adoption and impacts does not include distinct agroecological zones, distinct agronomic practices and types of crops grown. Using a multinomial logit model and a multinomial endogenous treatment effect model, we investigate the adoption of 5 CSA practices and their impacts on food security of smallholder farmers, across 4 agroecological zones and cereals and legumes farming systems in Mali. We find that, in the case of cereals farming, all 5 CSA practices are most adopted in the Sudano-Guinean zone and least adopted in the Sahelian zone, whereas in the case of legumes farming, minimum tillage, crop diversification and tree planting are least adopted in the Sudanian zone. Household size and access to extension agents are the 2 factors that positively affect the adoption of most CSA practices. Finally, minimum tillage and changing sowing dates are the only 2 CSA practices that have a positive and significant effect on food availability in households, whereas all 5 CSA practices have a positive and significant effect on dietary diversity in households. These findings show the importance of the adoption of CSA practices for improving the nutritional quality in smallholder farmers’ households. Practitioners should consider these findings when designing and implementing plans to disseminate CSA practices in Mali. Agricultural Economics & Policy Food Science & Technology Econometrics Climate-smart agriculture On-farm adoption Household food security Multinomial endogenous treatment effect Agroecological zones Mali Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Institutional Review Board Statement: Ethical approval was obtained from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture’s IRB, approved on Monday 4 December 2023. Informed Consent Statement: A verbal declaration of consent of participation was written in the questionnaire. Because most of the respondents cannot read, this consent of participation was translated by enumerators in local language and each respondent was asked for willingness to participate in the interview. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 30 Apr, 2026 Read the published version in Food Security → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7178009","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":488609578,"identity":"dc404141-1022-4bb0-92bf-eaec9b992d81","order_by":0,"name":"Abel-Gautier Kouakou","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Abel-Gautier","middleName":"","lastName":"Kouakou","suffix":""},{"id":488609579,"identity":"cc7d0b4e-bdb2-4d54-91ae-04f1c419f323","order_by":1,"name":"Abdullahi I. 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