Impact of climate-smart agricultural technology on multidimensional poverty in rural Ethiopia

A large body of empirical literature showed that the adoption of agricultural technologies reduces poverty. However, dominants of those studies so far used one-dimensional income or expenditure-based measures of poverty which may not reflect other types of deprivations. Therefore, the major objective of this study is to examine the impact of adopting climate-smart agricultural technology, which refers to a joint application of row planting methods and the use of chemical fertilizers, on the multidimensional poverty status of rural households in Ethiopia. To estimate the impact of the stated technologies, this study employs propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression methods. To measure the multidimensional poverty index, the study also uses the Alkire and Foster counting approach. Using the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey(ESS), collected in 2015-Wave 3, the results of the study show that the adoption of these technologies reduces deprivation score and one of its component, the standard of living part. Regionally, a high reduction in deprivation is observed in Amhara and Oromiya regions. The results also show that the impact is significantly higher in severely deprived households. It is also observed that the reduction in multidimensional poverty due to the technology is through an increase in income/consumption via improvement in production gain. The impact channels more through the non-food expenditure pathway. Finally, this study also sheds light on the effects that technology adoption has on multidimensional poverty reduction.