Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
In Ethiopia, the agricultural sector is increasingly affected by climate change, and in response, various strategies are being adopted to promote sustainability and food security. Hence, researchers have aimed to analyze the synergies and trade-offs of climate-smart agriculture practices on food security and resilience in Gubalafto Woreda, Ethiopia. The study employed a cross-sectional survey design with a mixed approach and gathered data from 10 key informant interviews, 3 focus group discussions, and a survey of 355 households. The data were analyzed via t tests and descriptive statistics. The study revealed that the most widely adopted CSA practices were chemical fertilizers (50%), improved crop varieties (33%), small-scale irrigation (27%), and agrochemicals (23%). Chemical fertilizer users had significantly higher mean food consumption scores (36.32 for adopters vs. 28.25 for non-adopters) and resilience capacity scores (0.513 for adopters vs. 0.147 for non-adopters) at p < 0.01. Compared with non-adopters, adopters of improved crop varieties had higher mean food consumption scores (38.43 vs. 29.33) and resilience scores (0.509 vs. 0.245). Moreover, small-scale irrigation has a strong synergistic effect on both food security and resilience (0.99). This is followed by compost (0.72 for food security; 0.74 for resilience). Agrochemicals provide medium synergy for food security (0.38) but result in trade-offs for resilience (0.19). Overall, all the top five practices contributed synergistically to food security and resilience, with the exception of agrochemicals, which presented a trade-off with respect to resilience. Efforts are recommended to focus on promoting small-scale irrigation systems, alongside the efficient use of fertilizers.
Wereta et al. (2026) studied this question.