Step by step to higher yields? Adoption and impacts of a sequenced training approach for climate-smart coffee production in Uganda

Climate change further exacerbates sustainability challenges in coffee cultivation. Addressing these requires effective delivery mechanisms for sustainable farming practices, particularly in smallholder contexts. We assess a novel public-private extension approach in Uganda, called Stepwise, comprising a sequence of climate-smart and good agricultural practices in four incremental steps. Using a mixed-method approach, an index that captures adoption intensity rather than binary uptake, and survey data from 915 Robusta and Arabica coffee farmers, we find adoption levels around 46% and relatively uniform amongst treated, spillover and comparison farmers. Regional variations suggest differing benefits across coffee varieties. Qualitative findings identify barriers to adoption, including financial and labour constraints, suboptimal training delivery, and input and output market imperfections. Despite relatively low uptake, adoption of more than half of the Stepwise practices is associated with substantial gains: inverse probability weighted regression adjustment reveals a 23% increase in yield and a 32% increase in revenue. Our findings add to the adoption literature, which often highlights limited uptake, and have important policy implications. Strengthening producer organizations, delivering targeted training but also innovative solutions for access to inputs and fair pricing, hold considerable potential to increase the adoption of climate-smart practices, particularly among resource-constrained farmers.

Biofuels in India: Trading off climate mitigation with water security goals

Biofuels are recognized as a renewable alternative to fossil sources of energy like petroleum or gas. Liquid biofuels, such as bioethanol and biodiesel are blended with petrol or diesel and used for road, aviation and marine transport; they are expected to account for 6% of total renewable transportation fuel use by 2030. Biofuels can not only support a country’s mitigation goals; but also reduce the need for foreign exchange and support agricultural growth. In India, 22% of total energy supply is provided by renewables, most of it from biomass for heating; while biofuels account for less than 1% of transportation energy. Over 90% of bioethanol and biodiesel are produced from food crops such as maize, sugarcane, soybeans, and vegetable oils, with sugarcane serving as the primary feedstock. As a signatory to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), India submitted its Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy (LT-LEDS) to the UNFCCC in 2022, emphasizing the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector. Achieving this goal is supported, among others, by India’s biofuel policy of 2018 (modified from the original policy of 2009), which aims to achieve blending targets of 20% for ethanol and 5% for biodiesel by 2025.

Farming households’ adaptation to climatic shocks in South Asia: A food systems perspective