*2.1. Study Area*

The study was conducted in 19 districts distributed in the three climatic zones of Benin: the Sudanian zone, the Sudano-Guinean zone, and the Guinean zone. Each of these zones has specific climatic characteristics (Table 1) [29].


**Table 1.** Characteristics of Benin's climatic zones.

The choice of districts was made considering the statistics on the quantity of maize produced district published by CountrySTAT and the diagnosis of the Agricultural Development Poles carried out by the National Agricultural Research Institute of Benin (INRAB) in 2018. The location of these districts is shown in Figure 1.

**Figure 1.** Map of Benin showing the location of the surveyed districts.
