Alumni

Dr. Wondimagegn Tesfaye

Thesis:
Essays on the Impacts of Climate-Smart Agricultural Innovations on Household Welfare

Year: 2019

Promotor(s):
Théophile Azomahou and Nyasha Tirivayi

Abstract:

Rural households in Sub-Saharan Africa face several microeconomic challenges including food crisis encompassing malnutrition, poverty, and food insecurity. Additionally, these households are often at the front lines of climate variability and extremes, which expose them to environmental and economic risks. In a disconcerting paradox, these particularly vulnerable households are mostly excluded from credit and insurance markets, while simultaneously disconnected from output markets. This research investigates the decisions agricultural households make in land and crop management, crop portfolio choices and postharvest storage to cope with the risks they encounter and improve their livelihood. Principally, it provides empirical evidence about the impacts of three climate-smart land and crop management innovations: conservation agriculture, crop diversification, and crop storage technologies on household welfare and risk coping using survey and historical weather data from Ethiopia and Uganda. The findings make important contributions to the literature and provide relevant policy recommendations that could assist rural households on their path to development.



Selected publications by Wondimagegn Tesfaye

UNU-MERIT