Key takeaways

• A study in Nigeria links climate shocks such as droughts and extreme weather to increased rates of stunting and other poor outcomes for children’s health.
• Associated declines in farm production affect children’s diets and health during a critical period of development, with impacts strongest for vulnerable households.
• Policy action to address this connection is urgently needed, including strengthening climate-resilient agriculture and improving market access.

Nigeria is facing mounting climate variabilities that threaten food production, livelihoods, and child nutritional status. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall patterns, floods, and droughts are reducing agricultural productivity, particularly among smallholder farming households that depend heavily on rain-fed agriculture. Our new paper, published in The Journal of Development Studies, demonstrates that these climate-induced agricultural productivity shocks significantly worsen child nutritional status in Nigeria by reducing food availability and household income. As agricultural production declines, families consume less diverse and less nutritious diets, increasing the prevalence of child stunting (low height for age and sex) and other poor anthropometric outcomes.

These findings have major implications for Nigeria’s development agenda and more broadly for low- and middle-income countries. They show how climate variabilities present challenges for food security, diets, and nutrition. Without urgent and coordinated policy action, the study suggests, climate-related agricultural shocks could reverse progress in reducing poverty and malnutrition and undermine long-term economic growth.

From climate shocks to child malnutrition

Nigeria’s agricultural sector remains highly vulnerable to climate variability and extreme weather events. Millions of rural households rely on smallholder agriculture as their primary source of food and income. Because most farming systems depend on rainfall, fluctuations in temperature and rainfall patterns directly affect crop yields, food production, and household welfare.

Climate shocks do not only reduce productivity or farm income; they can also directly undermine child nutritional outcomes. When rainfall becomes erratic, including droughts and dry spells, or temperatures rise beyond critical thresholds for crop growth, the resulting declines in agricultural productivity can reduce food availability at home and constrain dietary diversity. In particular, when households rely heavily on their own production, even modest declines in yields can have immediate consequences for diet and nutritional outcomes. This challenge is particularly acute in areas where access to markets, infrastructure, and alternative income sources remains limited. These combined stresses can ultimately affect children’s nutritional status.

Despite this intuitive link, rigorous evidence connecting climate-induced productivity shocks to child nutritional outcomes has remained limited. Drawing on nationally representative household panel data from Nigeria, combined with long-term temperature and precipitation data, our study examines the effects of climate variability on agricultural productivity and the mechanisms through which this affects child nutritional outcomes.

Our research empirically demonstrates that climate-induced agricultural productivity decline translates into poorer child nutrition outcomes. Children in affected households experience lower height-for-age Z-scores (HAZ) and weight-for-age Z-scores (WAZ), along with a higher prevalence of stunting. These findings suggest that the impacts of climate variabilities and shocks extend well beyond agriculture, with direct implications for child nutritional status.

How does the pathway work?

The paper examines the pathways through which climate variability and shocks affect child nutritional status in smallholder households in low-and middle-income countries.

When agricultural productivity declines, households produce less food for their own consumption. This directly affects both the quantity and quality of food available to children. This production-to-consumption pathway is especially important in rural Nigeria, where over 85% of farmers operate near subsistence levels, frequently cultivating less than two hectares. Unlike more commercialized systems, these households cannot easily rely on markets to smooth consumption. As a result, reduced production often leads to immediate reductions in food intake or shifts toward less nutritious diets.

This finding aligns with earlier research showing that production and consumption decisions are tightly intertwined in low-income agricultural systems (Amare et al., 2018, and Amare et al., 2021)

Key study highlights

The analysis highlights several key patterns:

• Climate variability has a strong and statistically significant impact on agricultural productivity. Higher temperatures and lower rainfall reduce yields, consistent with a growing body of evidence on the impacts of climate shocks and variabilities on agriculture.
• Declines in productivity have clear consequences for child nutritional status, leading to poorer child anthropometric indicators and increased prevalence of stunting.
• The impacts are highly uneven across households. For those with limited market access, a decline in agricultural productivity translates into a much larger deterioration in child anthropometric outcomes. Similarly, children in households with lower educational attainment of the household head are more adversely affected.
• Reduced own-produced food consumption is the primary mechanism through which climate affects child nutritional outcomes. When food production falls, households consume less of their own food, reinforcing the link between climate variability and shocks and child nutritional outcomes.

How to build resilience?

These findings have important implications for policy and program design. If climate variability and shocks affect child nutritional status primarily through agricultural production, then strengthening resilience at the farm level becomes critical not only for income but also child nutritional outcomes. Addressing these challenges requires urgent action that combines climate adaptation with nutrition-sensitive development strategies. Investments in resilient agriculture, market systems, and education can help protect vulnerable households and improve child well-being.

Investments in climate-smart agriculture can play a central role. Technologies such as drought-tolerant crop varieties, improved water management, and soil fertility practices can help stabilize yields under changing climate conditions. By reducing the volatility of agricultural production, these interventions can also protect household food consumption and child nutritional status.

At the same time, improving market access is essential. Better infrastructure and stronger market integration can allow households to purchase food when their own production falls, reducing reliance on subsistence farming. This can significantly buffer the impact of climate variability and shocks on children’s nutritional status. Education, particularly of household heads and caregivers, enhances the ability to adapt to shocks, diversify livelihoods, and make food decisions. As our results suggest, more educated household heads are better positioned to protect child nutritional status in the face of climate variability.

Looking ahead

Nigeria has an opportunity to build more resilient agri-food systems that can withstand future climate variability and shocks. The government and development partners can help safeguard child nutritional status, strengthen human capital, and support sustainable and inclusive development in the years ahead.

As climate variabilities and shocks continue to intensify, understanding its broader impacts on human welfare becomes increasingly important. The evidence in this study shows that the consequences of climate shocks extend beyond farms and markets, directly affecting child nutritional status and long-term human capital.

Looking ahead, further research can build on these findings by exploring additional pathways, such as health systems, caregiving practices, and food price dynamics. It would also be valuable to examine how different policy interventions, ranging from agricultural technologies to social protection programs, can mitigate these negative effects of climate variabilities on child nutritional status.

Finally, while this analysis captures short-term responses, the long-term implications may be even more significant. Repeated exposure to climate shocks can have cumulative effects on agricultural productivity and child nutritional outcomes. Addressing these challenges will require coordinated investments across agriculture, infrastructure, education, and health systems. In this context, strengthening resilience is not only about protecting livelihoods, but also about safeguarding the next generation.

Mulubrhan Amare is a Senior Research Fellow with IFPRI’s Development Strategies and Governance Unit; Bedru Balana is a Senior Research Fellow with IFPRI’s Agrifood Innovation and Resilience Unit. Opinions are the authors’.

This work was supported by the CGIAR Policy Innovations, Better Diets and Nutrition, and Climate Action Science Programs.

Reference:
Amare, M., & Balana, B. (2026). Climate-Induced Agricultural Productivity Shocks Undermine Child Nutritional Outcomes: Evidence from Nigeria. The Journal of Development Studies, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2026.2628673