Submissions Accepted for Presentation at the World Bank Land Conference 2024

We implemented a randomized evaluation of the impacts of KhetScore, an innovative credit scoring methodology that uses digital technologies to unlock credit and insurance for smallholders including landless farmers. In our treatment group, where we offered loans and insurance based on the KhetScore methodology, farmers were more likely to purchase insurance, renew insurance coverage in subsequent years, and borrow from formal sources. Despite increased borrowing, households in the treatment group faced less difficulty in repaying loans, suggesting that KhetScore loans, bundled with crop insurance, transferred risk and eased the burden of repayment. constraints. Finally, women in the treatment group reported significantly higher levels of empowerment and mental health, manifested in increased participation in household decision-making and reduced feelings of stress, than women in the control group. In conclusion, digital technologies can contribute substantially to expansion in agricultural credit access, risk management, resilience, and well-being among marginalized landless farmers.

Family farming is an important source of income for rural populations in Senegal. But, because of the effects of agricultural shocks coupled with the vagaries of climate change, farmers are often unable to increase their production, let alone their income. The objective of this research is to analyze the resilience strategies of family farms in rural Senegal in response to agricultural shocks, and to assess the effect of these resilience strategies on the productivity of farms and the income of farmers. The multivariate analysis shows that the adoption of resilience strategies of family farms is strongly linked to climatic variables (humidity, temperature, precipitation), the level of education of the owner of the farm, the size of the agricultural household and the agroecological zone. The impact evaluation shows that these resilience strategies have a significantly positive impact on the productivity of family farms in rural areas.

Quantifying the economic impacts of extreme climate scenarios on agriculture at a country level is important, informing the formulation of tailored adaptation policies and sustainable livelihoods. This study examined the current and potential economic impacts of climate change on Malawi’s agriculture using Ricardian analysis based on a four-year World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) panel data from 1,246 farming households. The marginal impact analysis was conducted for temperature and rainfall. The study then predicted the impact of climate scenarios on net revenue up to the year 2099. The results revealed that more warming will negatively affect agriculture land returns on one hand, while more precipitation will generate gains on the other hand. An ensemble of Global Circulation Models’ simulation affirms that impacts from global warming will be more important than those from precipitation change.

This paper investigates the effects of access to farmland on nutritional outcomes by examining gender differences in a developing country context. It specifically highlights the role of access to farmland in the promotion of dietary diversity and nutritional status of children under five and women. Based on a representative sample at the national level, analyses showed that access to farmland increases children’s dietary diversity score by 0.18 and 0.24 in full sample and male-headed households’ subsample, respectively. In addition, access to farmland increases the children nutritional status by 0.18 height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) in the male-headed households. Moreover, access to farmland increases by 3% and 4% the probability of having a normal Body Mass Index for women in the full sample and subsample of male headed households. This study calls for a more expensive Government land policy in order to improve economic growth, resilience, and poverty reduction in developing countries.