Impact of climate-smart agriculture adoption on the food security of coastal farmers in Bangladesh

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a suggested pathway to the improvement of food security in a changing climate. The Department of Agricultural Extension under the Bangladesh Ministry of Agriculture has been promoting CSA with farmers through climate field schools since 2010. This study investigated the impact of adoption of CSA practices on the household food security of coastal farmers in southern Bangladesh. Factors determining household food security were also explored. Data were collected from 118 randomly selected farmers of Kalapara sub-district in Patuakhali, Bangladesh. We identified 17 CSA practices that were adopted by the farmers in the study area. Those practices were saline-tolerant crop varieties, flood-tolerant crop varieties, drought-resistant crop varieties, early maturing rice, vegetables in a floating bed, 'sorjan' method of farming, pond-side vegetable cultivation, the cultivation of watermelon, sunflower or plum, relay cropping, urea deep placement, organic fertilizer, mulching, use of pheromone trap, rain water harvesting and seed storage in plastic bags or glass bottles. The farmers adopted on average seven out of these CSA practices. Among the sampled households, 32% were assessed as food secure, 51% were mildly to moderately food insecure and 17% were severely food insecure. Adoption of CSA practices was positively associated with household food security in terms of per capita annual food expenditure (beta = 1.48 Euro, p = 0.015). Households with a better educational level, farming as a major occupation, a larger pond size, greater number of cattle, higher household income, smaller family size and less difficulty with access to markets were likely to be more food secure. Increasing the adoption of CSA was important to enhance food security but not a sufficient condition since other characteristics of the farmers (personal education, pond size, cattle ownership and market difficulty) had large effects on food security. Nevertheless, increased adoption of saline-tolerant and flood-tolerant crop varieties, pond-side vegetable cultivation and rainwater harvesting for irrigation could further improve the food security of coastal farmers in southern Bangladesh.