Building resilience: How conservation agriculture can help smallholder women farmers adapt to climate change

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change promotes conservation agriculture as a cost-effective way of mitigating climate-related risks to food production. However, smallholder women farmers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face barriers to adopting this strategy, including limited access to land, capital, training, and gender-based societal stereotypes.

Global policy initiatives have often prioritized the viewpoints of advanced economies, overlooking the realities and constraints of vulnerable communities in LMICs. Smallholder women farmers are particularly marginalized and left out of crucial discussions regarding the effectiveness of climate-resilient agricultural systems.

Our project uses a participatory action research methodology to investigate how conservation agriculture can empower smallholder women farmers and mitigate climate-related risks to their (a) living standards, (b) food security, and (c) health. This advanced qualitative approach is designed to engage participants throughout the research process, allowing us to co-produce a practical set of policy interventions to tackle climate change in LMICs.

The project team includes an interdisciplinary group of experts from Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, and Canada seeking to address the following research objectives:

i. To understand the various conservation agriculture practices used by smallholder women farmers in two LMICS, Nigeria and Brazil, focusing on their benefits, limitations, and the socioeconomic resources needed for better outcomes.

ii. To empower smallholder women farmers by addressing their socioeconomic vulnerabilities (e.g., poor access to funds and skill enhancement opportunities) and physical challenges (e.g., limited access to modern agricultural tools).

iii. To co-produce an actionable set of evidence-based policy recommendations to promote climate change resilience and enhance the socioeconomic status of smallholder women farmers in LMICs.

Our work plan is divided into two research phases. Phase 1 will focus on exploring the lived experiences of smallholder women farmers using qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews and focus groups. In Phase 2, we will organize multi-stakeholder workshops, training, and pilot funding to enhance climate change resilience among smallholder women farmers in LMICs.

Our goal is to identify practical adaptation strategies and best practices that can be implemented in other national and global settings.