Collective Action and Farmers’ Private Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in the Savanna Region In Togo

Abstract

This study has two main objectives. The first main objective is to analyse the role of collective action and other factors on farmers’ adaptive behaviour. In addition to determining the impact of collective action on the propensity of farm households to adopt a specific adaptation measure, this study goes further to assess the impact of adaptation on farm income. The empirical estimations are based on the data coming from a household survey that was implemented within the Savanna region of Togo in the 2012-2013 agricultural year on 450 agricultural households. To achieve the first objective, the study firstly uses principal component analysis to recover the underlying latent variables of collective action at the household level given that collective action is not directly observed. Two factors, namely cooperative capacity and effective cooperation, are hypothesized to capture collective action and are further used in a two-step multivariate probit to examine whether collective action is systematically linked to adaptation to climate change. These two factors reflect different modes of group participation. The distinction between different modes of group participation is particularly relevant because membership per se may not determine impacts when members participate in group activities to varying degrees. In addition, the study builds a recursive dynamic mathematical programming model (bio-economic model) to achieve the second main objective. Prior to the bio-economic model, farm households in the study site were grouped into homogenous groups using a clustering technique. The results of the first method suggest, in general, that collective action at the individual farm household level in the form of cooperative capacity and effective cooperation does affect farmers’ private adaptation to climate change. One of the channels through which the effect of collective action on adaptation operates includes farmers’ climate change perception. Another important result from this first method is that climate change could enhance collective action initiatives. The results of the bio-economic model highlight the possibility of reducing climate change’s impact by the use of adaptation. Indeed, increases in the intensity of all the strategies used in the study site, except reduction in the use of fertilizer, have positive effects on farm income from crops and livestock. Moreover, irrigation can do more than simply compensate for climate change’s adverse impacts. It has a positive effect on farm households’ income and appears to be more efficient than the current situation, indicating that adoption of irrigation has a win-win outcome. It helps in coping with the adverse effects and risks of climate change while increasing agricultural productivity. By contrast, reduction in the use of fertilizer appears to increase farm households’ vulnerability. The magnitude of these results varies depending on farm households’ wealth. Policies that facilitate collective action could therefore help climate change adaptation such as water and soil conservation and irrigation practices by farm households, also by taking better advantage of collective action responses.