Impact of adoption of sustainable land management practices on food security of smallholder farmers in Mpumalanga province of South Africa

This study was carried out to investigate the impact of the adoption of sustainable land management practices (SLMP) on food security among smallholder farmers in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. A cross-sectional survey was conducted, where 250 maize farmers in the study area were interviewed. A household expenditure survey was used to measure the food security status and equally an efficient endogenous switching probit was employed to estimate the impact of SLMP on food security. The results show that 71% of the sampled respondents adopted SLMP, while 68% of the farmers were food secured. Furthermore, the results from the endogenous switching regression revealed that marital status, household size and membership in a social organization influence food security status. Similarly, the estimate of the average treatment effect on the treated indicated that maize farmers who adopted SLMP had a mean difference of 20 percentage or about 80% higher probability of being food secured compared to farmers who did not adopt. By implications, the study recommends that policies to improve SLMP should be introduced in the study area.