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Do soil and water conservation practices influence crop productivity and household welfare? Evidence from rural Nigeria

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Abstract

One of the most serious challenges threatening agricultural sustainability in Nigeria is land degradation. Although this issue has received little attention, soil and water conservation practices have been identified as a possible pathway out of the potential problems posed by land degradation. Therefore, the central research question that this paper tries to address is the following: Do adoption of soil and water conservation (SWC) practices affect crop productivity and household welfare? This paper uses data collected by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) from maize farmers in rural Nigeria. We usedemploy the propensity score matching (PSM), inverse probability weighting adjusted regression model (IPWRA) approach, and the linear regression with endogenous treatment effect (LRETE) model to incorporate the typologies of SWC practices, and tested how the model affects crop productivity and household welfare. Additionally, multinomial logit was used to estimate the factors influencing the decision to adopt single and multiple SWC practices. The estimates show that education, age of the household head, access to credit, experience of drought, soil fertility, and occupational stress contribute to the decision to adopt SWC practices. The casual effect estimates reveal that both single and multiple adoptions of SWC practices had a positive and significant relationship with the crop productivity and welfare of the adopters. The results show that the adoption of combined SWC practices has a higher impact on crop productivity and welfare than single SWC practices. For instance, the adoption of a combination of three SWC practices was found to increase crop productivity and household welfare by 27.55% and 38.23%, respectively versus 13.91% and 15.11% in the case of single SWC practices. The study suggests that profile-raising agenda and efforts that focus on promoting the adoption of combination of SWC practices should be designed and implemented to enhance crop productivity and hence the welfare of the maize farming households in rural Nigeria.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We are also grateful to the editor of this journal and the three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments and suggestions of great benefit to the current version. All claims presented in this paper are solely authors' and do not in anyway represent their affiliated organisations.

Funding

The data used for this work was funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation through the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (Maize-CRP) and a CIMMYT and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) project, and Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Abuja, Nigeria

    Adebayo Isaiah Ogunniyi

  2. Food Security and Safety Niche Area, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North West University, Private Mail Bag X2046, Mmabatho, 2790, North West Province, South Africa

    Abiodun Olusola Omotayo & Adeyemi Oladapo Aremu

  3. Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Belfast, Northern Ireland

    Kehinde Oluseyi Olagunju

  4. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Oro-Ago Crescent Garki II, Abuja, 901101, Nigeria

    Oyeyemi Motunrayo

  5. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Bamako, Mali

    Bola Amoke Awotide

  6. Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    George Mavrotas

  7. Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) Centre, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, North West University, Private Bag X2046, Mmabatho, 2790, North West Province, South Africa

    Adeyemi Oladapo Aremu

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  1. Adebayo Isaiah Ogunniyi
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Contributions

Conceptualization: A. I. O., A. O. O., and K. O. O.; methodology: A. O. O., A. I. O., and K. O. O.; writing—original draft preparation: A. O. O., A. I. O., and K. O. O.; writing—review and editing: A. O. O., A. I. O., O. M., G. M., B. A. A., A.O.A, and K. O. O. All the authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Abiodun Olusola Omotayo.

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IITA Research Ethics committee granted the research approval. Participation was voluntary and participants gave informed consents.

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Appendix

Appendix

Appendix Tables 5, 6, 7 and 8

Table 5 Summary statistics: Disaggregated by adopters and Non-adopters of each soil and water conservation (SWC) practices
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Table 6 Summary statistics: Disaggregated by adopters and non-adopters of each soil and water conservation (SWC) practices
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Table 7 Test for validity of instruments
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Table 8 Collinearity diagnostics
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Ogunniyi, A.I., Omotayo, A.O., Olagunju, K.O. et al. Do soil and water conservation practices influence crop productivity and household welfare? Evidence from rural Nigeria. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 56016–56036 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26280-2

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