Climate change adaptation strategies, productivity and sustainable food security in southern Mali

Abstract Many people in African countries derive their livelihoods from agriculture. Therefore, unfavourable environmental and climatic conditions render them more vulnerable to increasing food insecurity and poverty rates. However, few studies have investigated how farmers’ adaptation strategies affect farm productivity and household food security in the Sahelian region, notably Mali. We analyse factors that influence adaptation strategies to climate change and the impacts of the adaptation strategies on maize productivity and household food security in southern Mali. Farmers use adaptation strategies such as organic fertilizers, changing planting dates and growing of short duration maize varieties to mitigate against the negative effects of climate change. We find that farmer experience, number of livestock owned, off-farm employment, access to credit, farmer association and technical training exert positive effects on the use of planting short-duration maize varieties as an adaptation strategy, while distance to the farm shows a negative effect. We observe that household size, experience in maize farming, number of livestock owned and technical training positively influence farmers to change planting dates as an adaptation strategy. The use of organic fertilizers and short-duration maize varieties promote maize productivity and food security. We conclude that building farmers’ adaptive capacity tends to reduce their vulnerability to climate change by increasing crop yields and food security.