Factors Influencing the Double-Up Adoption of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Malawi

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic of the article, "Factors Influencing Double-up Adoption of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Malawi," is indeed logical and relevant. It addresses the important issue of understanding the factors that influence the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies by smallholder maize farmers in Malawi. This is a topic of great importance as climate change poses significant challenges to agricultural systems, and smallholder farmers are particularly vulnerable to its impacts. The article is well-written, with clear objectives that guide the study. The authors used a logic model to identify the factors that influence the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies. This is a systematic and logical approach to understanding complex phenomena such as farmer decision-making processes. However, there are some mistakes with the numerical values in the figures and tables, which should be revised before final acceptance. In conclusion, I recommend accepting the article for publication after minor revisions to correct the mistakes in the figure and table numericals. Overall, the article makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of factors influencing the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies by smallholder maize farmers in Malawi.

Author Response

There are some mistakes with the numerical values in the figures and tables, which should be revised before final acceptance.

• We re-run the model in Stata to verify the correctness of the numerical values and some slight adjustments were made in some tables for example, a column of total frequency percentage was added.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the factors influencing smallholder maize farmers' decisions to adopt dual climate change adaptation strategies in Malawi. The findings showed that factors such as landholding size, inorganic fertilizer use, seed access, access to extension services, access to credit, and input coupon access significantly impact smallholder maize farmers' decisions to adopt dual climate change adaptation strategies in Malawi. Overall, this study delves into a highly pertinent subject for both theoretical and practical applications. However, there are specific areas that warrant revision and clarification. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Introduction

11. Page 2, lines 52-57: Elaborate on why these three strategies (maize-legume diversification, organic fertilizer use, and agroforestry) were chosen, providing a brief rationale.

• These strategies were chosen because they are sustainable adaptation practices which can be incorporated in a maize based mixed cropping system and potentially address farmers immediate needs of food and income and in the long run help to build soil fertility

 

13. On page 2 when discussing agroforestry, briefly explain how agroforestry helps control soil loss during flash floods.

• Inclusion of trees that are deep rooted in a maize field can help to control erosion of soil during flash floods.

15. Clarify the significance of double-up adoption and how it aids in the transition from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture.

• Dual adoption will help to strengthen farmers’ resilience to climate change. Usually farmers are unaware of the type of weather they are to experience during an agricultural season due to change in climatic conditions hence dual adoption will give farmers a security measure to unprecedented weather. Besides, legumes, organic fertilizer use and practice of agroforestry using leguminous trees have environmental benefits of conserving and enriching soil whereas maize-legume diversification and agroforestry involving fruit trees can economically boost farmers’ income to expand their levels of production thus aiding transition from subsistence to commercial farming.

 

16. Elaborate on why adoption rates of the strategies remain low in Malawi, providing more context.

• Some studies as highlighted in the text, have characterized Malawi agriculture sector to be highly undiversified citing lack of farmers’ education as one of the reasons behind low adoption rate of strategies like crop diversification.

 

18. The significance of the study should be added in the Introduction. The authors should be able to highlight the need for the study.

• This study identifies or exposes some of constraining factors for farmers to adjust their farming practices in a way that will mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. Therefore, the findings from this study will provide practical solutions that will guide policy related decisions within Malawi’s agriculture sector.

 

19. Why is it timeliness to explore such a study?

• A study by Jafino et al. [17] (under World Bank) highlighted that most people in sub-Saharan Africa will be subjected to extreme poverty if necessary climate actions are not taken by the year, 2050. Therefore, to prevent farmers from being trapped into extreme poverty as a result of climate change, this study evaluate factors for farmers to scale up their responsiveness to climate change effects through dual adoption of sustainable adaptation strategies that has both environmental and economic benefits.

 

20. What makes this study different from other studies in the world?

• Apart from seeking to evaluate factors that aid farmers’ mere adoption decision of climate change adaptation strategies, this study mainly emphasized on dual adoption of sustainable adaptation practices or strategies which can feasibly being incorporated into a mixed maze based cropping system. These strategies include: maize-legume diversification, organic fertilizer use and practice of agroforestry.

 

21. Are the findings different from prior academic studies that were conducted elsewhere, if any?

• Some of the findings from this study are consistent with that from other empirical studies. However this study also found out that unlike just mere access to agricultural extension, for farmers to dual adopt climate change adaptation strategies both access and use of such extension labelled as adherence to agricultural extension was found to be one of the key factors.

 

Materials and Methods:

28. Provide a brief overview or context for readers unfamiliar with the Bounded Rationality the study and how they guide the analysis.

• Bounded rationality theory stipulates that individuals make choices that deviates from their utility maximizing behaviour as a result of constraints like information asymmetry and uncertainty [44]. Therefore this theory is adopted in this study in the sense that smallholder maize farmers may fail to dual adopt climate change adaptation strategies because of being limited by some factors which can be demographic, socio-economic and institutional in nature. Correspondingly, McFadden’s [29] random utility model represents the stochastic utility theory that considers the randomness of preference over discrete choices [16]. The theory is also adapted in this study considering that random utility is a sub-category of probabilistic choice models that are used to economically represent individuals maximizing behaviour [27].

 

29. Explain the rationale behind the chosen specification of the empirical model. Why was the

Logit model chosen, and how does it suit the study's objectives?

• The rationale behind specifying the empirical model was to demonstrate how the model is mathematically presented and what each step of it mean in correspondence with this study. The Logit model was used because of the dichotomous nature of dependent variable.

This study used dual adoption as an explained variable while the hypothesized demographic, socio-economic and institutional factors as explanatory variables. Specifically, a smallholder maize farmers were classified into two groups of dual adopters and non-adopters. A farmer was considered a dual adopter (coded 1 in the model) if they had incorporated at least two adaptation practices namely; maize-legume diversification, organic fertilizer use and practice of agroforestry and non-adopter (coded 0 in the model) if otherwise. Estimation of such dummy dependent qualitative variable can be done using three approaches namely; Linear Probability Model (LPM), logit model and probit model [40]. Despite being easy to use, LPM has deficiencies of allowing heteroscedasticity presence and the estimated probability has a likelihood of lying outside 0-1 bound; on the other hand, inferences that can be drawn from applying logit and probit models on the same data are invariably similar despite the coefficient results of logit having a tendency to exceed that of probit by a scale factor of 1.6 to 1.8 [15]. Therefore, this study preferably used logit model.

 

Results and Discussion

32. Explicitly mention the novelty or contribution of your study.

• This study will therefore contribute to the existing literature as it analysed and identified factors that influence smallholder maize farmers’ decision to adjust their level of responsiveness to climate related shocks through dual adoption of adaptation strategies.

 

Conclusion and Recommendation

37. Additionally, it is crucial to discuss both the theoretical and practical implications of the study's findings.

• The policy implication is that the results from this study can be used by policy makers to design policy interventions that address the needs of smallholder maize farmers for them to respond positively to climate change by dual adopting the sustainable adaptation strategies.

 

38. How the study contributes to the existing theoretical framework and its potential applications in real-world settings.

• The study contribute to the existing theoretical framework by illustrating how dual adoption of climate change adaptation strategies will be able to meet and sustain both the immediate and long term needs of smallholder maize farmers. In a real world setting, attending to the needs of smallholder maize farmers as highlighted by this study by concerned stakeholders for example, increasing landholding size of farmer and their access to seed, credit, input coupon, and inorganic fertilizer; besides strengthening their adherence to agricultural extension services can significantly influence farmer decision to dual adopt adaptation strategies as a mitigation measure to the adverse impacts of climate change.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript "Factors Influencing Double-up Adoption of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Malawi" is very interesting.

General comments:
The authors assessed factors influencing the dual adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among small-scale maize farmers in Malawi.

Detailed comments:
The Introduction is quite interesting. The section "2. Literature review" could be part of the Introduction, but I leave that to the Editor.
Lines 219-220: The sentence "The IHS4 data was analyzed in STATA as a statistical software." is not informative. The MM chapter should list all the methods used. Listing a program is not a methodology.
Line 298: Why was a simple regression model with only one explanatory variable used?
Lines 313-315: Looking at the record of patterns until the eyes hurt. It should be corrected to an aesthetically pleasing form.
What method did the authors use to evaluate the best model?
There is no information in the manuscript about the methodology regarding statistical analysis.

My suggestions:
Citations are not prepared according to the journal's policy.
"et al." not "et al"

Paper needs major revision.

Author Response

Review Report 3

Why was a simple regression model with only one explanatory variable used?

• The Logit model was used because of the dichotomous nature of dependent variable.

This study used dual adoption as an explained variable while the hypothesized demographic, socio-economic and institutional factors as explanatory variables. Specifically, a smallholder maize farmers were classified into two groups of dual adopters and non-adopters. A farmer was considered a dual adopter (coded 1 in the model) if they had incorporated at least two adaptation practices namely; maize-legume diversification, organic fertilizer use and practice of agroforestry and non-adopter (coded 0 in the model) if otherwise. Estimation of such dummy dependent qualitative variable can be done using three approaches namely; Linear Probability Model (LPM), logit model and probit model [40]. Despite being easy to use, LPM has deficiencies of allowing heteroscedasticity presence and the estimated probability has a likelihood of lying outside 0-1 bound; on the other hand, inferences that can be drawn from applying logit and probit models on the same data are invariably similar despite the coefficient results of logit having a tendency to exceed that of probit by a scale factor of 1.6 to 1.8 [15]. Therefore, this study preferably used logit model.

Lines 313-315: Looking at the record of patterns until the eyes hurt. It should be corrected to an aesthetically pleasing form.

• The equation has been stretched to make it at least clear. It was preferably expressed in a single line because the whole equation portrays the derivation of logistic distribution function, representing the probability that a household will dual adopt climate change adaptation-strategies.
  
  

What method did the authors use to evaluate the best model?

• Diagnostic tests were conducted during data analysis. Diagnostics for Binary Choice Model (BCM) like logit model ascertains the results of analysis to be valid as the model has to meet and satisfy the assumptions of BCM. Therefore, in this study before running the logit model there were some diagnostic tests that were carried out to establish precise statistical inference and verify as to whether the model fits the data sufficiently well or not. Some of these tests include:
• Goodness of fit test carried out to check if the overall model is statistically significant
• (ii) Heteroscedasticity test meant to cross-check a phenomenon where the variance of dependent variable is not the same for any independent observation causing very high standard errors and inconsistent sample estimates
• (iii) Multicollinearity test, a problem that arise when two or more explanatory variables in a regression model are highly correlated making it impossible to distinguish the accurate independent effect of such parameter estimate on the explained variable.

There is no information in the manuscript about the methodology regarding statistical analysis.

• The methodology section has been enriched with additional sub-titles regarding statistical analysis. For instance, descriptive statistics that were computed to compare the demographic, socio-economic and institutional factors expressed as explanatory variables in this study. Specifically, chi-square test was used for dummy variables while t-test was used for continuous variables. Besides, the inferential statistic that shows the use of logit model to assess factors influencing double-up adoption of climate change adaptation strategies. Furthermore, the diagnostic tests also form part of statistical analysis.
  
  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The present document evaluates which criteria are willing to encourage the adopto of two practices in small farmers in Malawi in order to make their cropping system more sustainable.

The abstract is globally ok.

The introduction and the litterature review should be completely reviewed as there is a missunderstanding between the adaptation to climate change and sustainable agriculture to reduce the climate change, there are many redundancies on this topic and in the introduction there are many affirmations without bibliographic references (this confusion between adaptation to climate change and sustainability could be also confusing in the abstract. The agronomic side is completly neglected

The material and method is confusing and we do not know how they determine if farmers are adopters or not basis to the rest of the analysis.

There is latter no hypothesis on the fact that the adoption fact based on already taken decisions that we know do not know the determinants (only partially) will facilite the future adoption by non adopters. Even if probably the determinants highlighted are a good orientation globally they do not guarantee that modifying them farmer will switch. Again no mention on the agronomic side of the decision is taken into account such as potential yield of new crops in the non adopters farmers' fields.

The discussion is quite extensive.

Conclusion are quite fine regarless the confusion cited before.

More detailed comments in the attached document

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Review Report 4

The present document evaluates which criteria are willing to encourage the adoption of two practices in small farmers in Malawi in order to make their cropping system more sustainable.

• The underlying objective of this study was to assess factors that influence smallholder maize farmers decision to dual adopt climate change adaptation strategies.

The introduction and the literature review should be completely reviewed as there is a misunderstanding between the adaptation to climate change and sustainable agriculture to reduce the climate change, there are many redundancies on this topic and in the introduction there are many affirmations without bibliographic references (this confusion between adaptation to climate change and sustainability could be also confusing in the abstract.

• The introduction and literature review sections have been merged together and some sentences have been rephrased and in text citations were included where necessary.
• The study focused on sustainable agricultural practices namely; maize-legume diversification, organic fertilizer use and practice of agroforestry which farmers in Malawi can dual adopt within their maize based cropping system as a mitigation or copping mechanism to adverse impacts of climate change. Besides, these strategies were chosen considering that if dual adopted they can possibly offer both environmental and economic benefits to farming households

The agronomic side is completely neglected

• It is indeed true that there are so many variables of interest based on literature review which would have been part of or included in the analysis of this study but one of the limitations for this study (which has now been indicated in the manuscript) is that it primarily relied on secondary data since the study coverage or level of analysis was nationwide. Huge missing values of some variables in the dataset was one of the reasons these variables were not included for analysis. Therefore, based on completeness of variables in the dataset, this study only focused on demographic, socio-economic and institutional factors and made its conclusion and recommendation based on the results of these variables included in the model. This implies that variables considered in analysis are not exhaustive. Further, this study only considered the agronomic perspective in the explained part of analysis involving the sustainable adaptation practices which are perceived to be ecologically viable options in responding to climate change.

The material and method is confusing and we do not know how they determine if farmers are adopters or not basis to the rest of the analysis.

• The material and method section has been revised. One of the objective of this study was to compare the demographic, socio-economic and institutional characteristics of smallholder maize farmers in Malawi and it was achieved by computing descriptive statistics to compare two groups of dual adopters and non- adopters. Besides, logit model was employed for the underlying objective of assessing factors that influence dual adoption of climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder maize farmers

There is latter no hypothesis on the fact that the adoption fact based on already taken decisions that we know do not know the determinants (only partially) will facilitate the future adoption by non- adopters. Even if probably the determinants highlighted are a good orientation globally they do not guarantee that modifying them farmer will switch. Again no mention on the agronomic side of the decision is taken into account such as potential yield of new crops in the non- adopters farmers' fields.

• To check for statistical relationship between dual adoption (dummy dependent variable) and factors that influencing such decision (independent variables) the study used logistic regressing modeling which uses maximum likelihood technique. The results and discussion section illustrates how each of these factors found to be significant, increases the likelihood or the probability of a smallholder maize farmers to double-up adoption of climate change adaptation strategies.

You need to be more precise on the objectives of each these practices/options

• All the three strategies considered within the scope of analysis of this study are sustainable adaptation practices that have complementary relationship in a mixed maize based cropping system hence viable for dual adoption by smallholder farmers in responding to climate change
• Maize-legume diversification, organic fertilizer use and practice of agroforestry using leguminous trees have environmental benefits of conserving and enriching soils. Again, maize-legume diversification and agroforestry involving fruit trees can economically boost farmers’ income

Compared to what because they are not better than synthetic fertilizers as we cannot apply as much as we want and the concentration in nutrients are limited, please add a reference and modulate your sentence accordingly

• Within agriculture sector, organic fertilizer use is considered to be one of the sustainable ways in responding to climate change as compared to synthetic fertilizers which have chemical spill over effect to soils besides being expensive. However, considering their potential to increase yield, this study still more included in the model the use of inorganic fertilizer which was found to positively influence dual adoption decision. Therefore, there is need to balance the use of two types of fertilizer in a way that will be sustainable for crop production.

You need to describe which variables are available in this survey and how you have used them to define if the farmer is adopter or not: because you have only explained the socio economic traits but not the ones about the crops

• Under methodology section ‘’Definition of variables” part has been included with an explanation of each of the hypothesized variables included for the analysis. However it is difficult to describe all other variables available in this survey data (IHS4) which was primarily collected to provide benchmark poverty and vulnerability indicators for Malawi as it covers wider topics from its agriculture, household and community modules.

I think is not sampling size but you mean population size, all farmers which have cultivated maize within the different regions, if not you need to explain how you did the sampling in the population legend should be more precise, indicating that each individual represents a household producing maize in the year ... in each Malawi region or something similar

• The whole total sample size for IHS4 data was 12,447 randomly selected households in all three regions of Malawi namely; Northern, Central and Southern. A stratified two stage sample design was used for IHS4. However, this study based its analysis only on farmers that produced maize which were in total 8942 households out of the 12,447 hence the use of the term sample size.

It’s not clear what you mean with +/-

• The positive or negative expected sign of the hypothesized variables means that a particular variable cannot be assigned a prior sign or expectation in the model as it can either have a positive or negative effect on the dependent variable.

What about yield variability as consequence of climate change?

• It was initially stated as output variance and it has been changed to yield variance.

The prize volatility is independent on the crop farmers are cultivating, or you need to probe that a new crop (legume or the Agroforestry which is in the long term able to produce) are able to compensate ... as in the case of legume the yield*price could be not be as high as the one of maize... you need really to justify this in your working hypothesis. If it was economically advantageous to cultivate legume crops, then farmers would have been cultivated then

• Conceptually, in this study smallholder maize farmers decision to dual adopt adaptation strategies is perceived to be rational in the sense that farmers will be able to meet their immediate needs of food and income in case of maize-legume diversification because in Malawi, legumes are one of the sources of plant protein and under same quantity, legume prices are higher compared to that of maize. Besides biologically legumes can fix nitrogen in the soils. Correspondingly strategies like practice of agroforestry and use of organic fertilizer can help to build and enriching the soil with nutrients. On the other hand, with climate change mono-cropping of maize faces high risk of yield variation and price volatility in time when farmers are faced with covariant risk of drought and other extreme weather events caused by climate change.

What happens if the new "system" does not meet those needs?

• May be it might happen but under normal circumstance, as presented by literature strategies such as maize-legume diversification, organic fertilizer use and practice of agroforestry in a mixed cropping system should be able to meet the need of smallholder farmers such as food and income and the long term requirement of enriched soils. If these strategies are not able to meet those need then probably there must be other factors worthy analyzing like how individual farmers are managing their crops or cropping system. Taking that into account, despite data limitation factor on very precise variables to reflect such a condition, this study included adherence to agriculture extension in the model to assess its independent effect on dual adoption of these strategies.

How it has been done (not clearly explained)

• The results in table 1 were computed using a cross tabulation command in Stata (by tabulating each of the three strategies with region) which yields the output containing frequencies and percentages.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have successfully addressed the comments. However, there are still some minor comments that the authors should address.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

• Adjusting the keywords to journal`s format (written in small letters and separated by semi-colon)
• Rephrasing and correcting slight grammatical errors of some words within sentences and paragraphs
• (ii) Providing a brief definition of Sustainable Crop Production Intensification (SCPI) in the introductory paragraph.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors satisfactorily responded to my comments and revised the manuscript.
I recommend publishing the manuscript in its present form.

Author Response

Thank you for your kind comments

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have corrected most of the remarks requested during the first review and noticiably the efford in the material and method section and in the introduction, where many new information have been added to make more understandable the methodology followed. My only regret is on the limits of the research, where authors have stated thethe boundaries of the study without  considering other factors that may affect, even if in the answer given to my comments they have cited some not reported in the text.

There are some minor errors to be corrected and all Appendix tables should be cited in the main text.

Besides the number of the references in the text should be put in order from 1 till the end.

Attached in the file you can find the suggested corrections to be checked

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

• All appendix tables have been cited in the main text and hyperlinked accordingly.
• The numbering of references in the text has been orderly arranged from 1 to 51
• All highlighted words have been corrected including punctuations as suggested.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf