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Large changes have taken place in smallholder farming systems in South Asia's coastal areas in recent decades, particularly related to cropping intensity, input availability, climate risks, and off-farm activities. However, few studies have investigated the extent to which these changes have impacted farm-level crop productivity, which is a key driver of food security and poverty in rainfed, low-input, rice-based systems. The objective of this study was to conduct an integrated assessment of variables related to socioeconomic status, farm characteristics, and crop management practices to understand the major factors influencing crop productivity and identify promising leverage points for sustainable development in coastal Bangladesh. Using a panel survey dataset of 32 variables from 502 farm households located within polder (coastal embankment) and outside polder systems during 2005–2015, we employed statistical factor analysis to characterize five independent latent factors named here as Farming Challenges, Economic Status, Crop Management Practices, Asset Endowment, and Farm Characteristics. The factor Farming Challenges explained the most variation among households (31%), with decreases observed over time, specifically households located outside polders. Individual variables contributing to this factor included perceived cyclone severity, household distance to main roads and input-output markets, cropping intensity, and access to extension services. The most important factors for increasing crop productivity on a household and per unit area basis were Asset Endowment and Crop Management Practices, respectively. The former highlights the need for increasing gross cropped area, which can be achieved through greater cropping intensity, while the latter was associated with increased fertilizer, labor, and pesticide input use. Despite the importance of these factors, household poverty trajectory maps showed that changes in off-farm income had played the strongest role in improving livelihoods in this coastal area. This study can help inform development efforts and policies for boosting farm-level crop productivity, specifically through agricultural intensification (higher cropping intensity combined with appropriate and efficient use of inputs) and expanding opportunities for off-farm income as key pathways to bring smallholder households out of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By developing meta-frontier efficiency and structural equation models, the paper examines whether farm economic viability is positively associated with technical efficiency in a highly food insecure context, such as that of rural Sierra Leone. The findings show that technical efficiency can be a sufficient but not necessary condition in determining economic viability of smallholder farming. It is possible to breach reproductive thresholds at the cost of reduced technical efficiency, when the crop diversification strategy of smallholders includes market-oriented high-value crops. This calls for a dual policy approach that addresses farmers' internal needs for self-consumption (increasing efficiency of food crop production) while encouraging market-oriented cash crop production (diversification assisted through the reduction of associated transaction costs and the establishment of accessible commercialization channels of export related crops and/or high-value crops). The work also calls out for a move-up or move-out strategy for small holders to create viable farming systems in developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Asia is the world’s most poverty-dense region, where climate change and climate variability are expected to result in increased heat stress and erratic precipitation patterns that affect agricultural productivity. Considerable evidence has been generated on the effects of these stresses on crop yield, though previous research has not yet examined their influence on the economic efficiency of cereal producers. Surveying 240 farmers across eight of Pakistan’s twelve agro-ecological zones, we examined the impact of temperature and precipitation anomalies – as indicators of climatic variability – and the number of days when temperature exceeds crop specific heat stress thresholds on the economic efficiency of rice and wheat production. To this end, we employed first-stage stochastic production frontier (SPF) models and second-stage ordinary least square (OLS) and quantile regression models. Both OLS and quantile regressions indicated that terminal heat >34 °C has a significant negative impact on wheat production economic efficiency. Small positive deviation (0.54 °C ± 0.16 SD) of the wheat season’s mean temperature from the medium-term historical mean also significantly and negatively affected economic efficiency across all regression models. Heat stress >35.5 °C during rice flowering in the monsoon also had a significant and negative impact. A slight positive deviation in temperature averaging 0.38 °C (±0.11 SD) above the medium-term mean also had significant negative effects across all regressions. Cumulative precipitation conversely had significant yet contrary effects, by offsetting farmers’ investment in supplementary irrigation and increasing economic efficiency. Our results highlight the fact that indicators of climatic variability and heat stress negatively affect the economic efficiency of both rice and wheat producing farmers. Farmers’ education and access to financial and extension services were however both positively associated with economic efficiency. Our findings point to the importance of developing interlinked agronomic, economic and socio-ecological policy strategies to adapt and increase the resilience of Pakistan’s cereal systems to climatic variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies estimate the immediate impact of climate change on agricultural societies in terms of changes in crop yields or farm income, though few studies concentrate on the immediate secondary consequences of climate change. This synthetic analysis uses a set of indicators to assess the repercussions of predicted income reductions resulting from climate change on food consumption, nutrition, health expenditure, education, and recreation in Zimbabwe, Cameroon, South Africa and Ethiopia. We also assess the potential decline in human development potential among smallholder dryland farmers in these sub-Saharan African countries. In contrast to previous efforts, the current study directly integrates the uncertainties in estimations of income changes and secondary consequences through a weighting scheme. The results reveal moderate to high levels of secondary impacts which could lead to increased vulnerability to diseases, susceptibility to nutritional disorders, deprivation of educational opportunities, and ultimately to a reduction in human and societal development potential among the considered nations. The article concludes by proposing a portfolio of policy options for ameliorating the secondary impacts of climate change in these sub-Saharan African countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]