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Contribution of Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies to Food Self-Sufficiency of Smallholder Households in Mali

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/11855/
https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147757
doi:10.3390/su13147757
 
Title Contribution of Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies to Food Self-Sufficiency of Smallholder Households in Mali
 
Creator Traore, B
Zemadim, B
Sangaré, S
Gumma, M K
Tabo, R
Whitbread, A M
 
Subject Millets
Sustainable Agriculture
Climate Change
Food Security
 
Description Climate change has resulted in food insecurity for the majority of farming communities in
the Sudano-Sahelian zone of Mali. In this paper, we present a methodology for scaling climate-smart
agriculture (CSA) technologies such as Contour Bunding (CB), Microdosing (MD), Intercropping (IC),
Zaï pits, and Adapted crop Variety (AV) treatments, and evaluated their contribution to smallholder
households’ food self-sufficiency. We used the participatory technology selection method and onfarm
demonstration in order to tackle farm-related constraints. The study found that there has been
a major shift in the spatial distribution of land use/land cover (LULC) classes between 2016 and
2020. About 25% of the areas changed from other land use/land cover to cropland. Crop yields
obtained from CSA-treated fields were significantly higher than yields from farmers’ practice (FP).
The application of CSA technologies resulted in millet yield increases by 51%, 35%, and 23% with
contour bunding (CB), microdosing (MD) and intercropping (IC), respectively. With Zaï pits and
adapted variety (AV) treatments, the yield increases were 69% and 27%, respectively. Further, the use
of IC and MD technologies reduced the food-insecure household status to 13%, which corresponds
to a food insecurity reduction of 60%. The application of Zaï technology reversed the negative
status of food-insecurity to +4%, corresponding to a reduction in food insecurity of more than 100%.
In the case of food-secure households, the application of CSA technologies led to increased food
production. However, notwithstanding this, prospects for CSA in the Sahel hinge on the capacities
of farming households and local extension agents to understand the environmental, economic and
social challenges in the context of climate change, and consequently to self-mobilize in order to select
and implement responsive technologies.
 
Publisher MDPI
 
Date 2021-07
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/11855/1/sustainability-13-07757.pdf
Traore, B and Zemadim, B and Sangaré, S and Gumma, M K and Tabo, R and Whitbread, A M (2021) Contribution of Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies to Food Self-Sufficiency of Smallholder Households in Mali. Sustainability (TSI), 13 (14). pp. 1-17. ISSN 2071-1050