August 5, 2025

Climate-Smart Aquaculture Adoption in Rural Areas around Lake Victoria, Tanzania: Gender, Socioeconomic, and Institutional Influences

Key Points

MAIN FINDING: Socioeconomic and institutional constraints significantly affect climate-smart aquaculture adoption among smallholder farmers.
KEY EVIDENCE: Variables like household size, education, and financial grants have a strong association with CSAq adoption rates.
APPROACH: The study utilized a Multinomial Logit model to analyze survey data from 384 fish farmers in Tanzania's Lake Zone.
SIGNIFICANCE: Realigning financial and training support could enhance climate resilience and food security in Tanzania's aquaculture sector.

Abstract

Climate-Smart Aquaculture (CSAq) is increasingly recognized as a sustainable adaptation strategy to enhance aquaculture productivity, resource efficiency, and climate resilience. However, socioeconomic and institutional constraints continue to shape CSAq adoption patterns, particularly among smallholder farmers. This study examines the determinants of CSAq adoption in Tanzania’s Lake Zone, using a Multinomial Logit (MNL) model to analyze survey data from 384 fish farmers. The model assesses the likelihood of adopting Integrated Aquaculture-Agriculture (IAA), Polyculture, or Monoculture (baseline category) based on household characteristics, financial access, extension services, and education levels. The findings reveal that household size (p < 0.05), education level (p < 0.05), financial grants (p < 0.01), and extension services (p < 0.01) significantly influenced CSAq adoption. Larger households and better-educated farmers were more likely to adopt IAA, while financial support and extension services were associated with higher Monoculture adoption rather than CSAq. This suggests that current institutional support structures may be reinforcing conventional single-species fish farming rather than promoting climate-resilient aquaculture models. Gender was not statistically significant, indicating that CSAq adoption disparities are more closely linked to financial and institutional constraints rather than direct gender-based preferences. These findings highlight the urgent need to realign financial incentives, extension programs, and training initiatives to promote climate-smart aquaculture adoption. Policies should prioritize CSAq financing models, and integrate climate-smart training into extension services. Strengthening institutional support mechanisms and enhancing smallholder farmers' access to CSAq knowledge and resources will be critical for achieving climate resilience, food security, and rural economic development in Tanzania’s aquaculture sector.

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Cite This Study

Mdoe et al. (Wed,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/689522129f4f1c896c429a3d https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.59557/rpj.1.1.2025.183

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