Agricultural development strategy in many Africa countries assumes that crop diversification leads to improved food and nutrition security. However, the direct causal link is far from simplistic, and the existing empirical evidence is mixed. In this study, we investigate crop diversification's effect on farm household's poverty dynamics in Nigeria. We take advantage of novel and unique nationally representative household panel survey data combined with geospatial information on agro-climatic conditions from Nigeria. To our knowledge, it is the first time that a welfare-based, micro-level dataset with spatial coverage has been assembled to examine the effect of climatesmart agriculture practice on poverty dynamics. Our analysis relies on an endogenous switching model that accounts for both initial condition bias and sample attrition bias. Results are consistent across different crop diversity measures, showing that adopting crop diversity is negatively associated with poverty entry but does not affect poverty persistence. Given the heterogeneous effects of crop diversity on short-term poverty (poverty entry) and long-term poverty (poverty persistence), other adaptations and mitigation strategies are suggested to help poor households escape poverty.
Project leader: Eleni Yitbarek
Project researchers:
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