Global Health seminar - Smallholder Farming Households Nutrition Under Extreme Heat: Vulnerabilities and Adaptation

Event details

Abstract:

Climate change threatens food security in Sub-Saharan Africa, but the magnitude of its nutritional impacts and the household-level behaviors that mediate them remain understudied. I examine how extreme heat during the crop growing season affects the commercialization and consumption decisions of Nigerian smallholder farming households, and how these responses shape post-harvest nutrition. Using five waves of panel data (2010–2024) linked to high-resolution weather, I exploit within-household variation in growing-season temperatures. Results show that hotter seasons depress harvests and reduce diet quality while leaving total caloric intake unchanged. I estimate that a +1C warming would result in 1.62 and 0.63 million additional households with inadequate protein and iron intake, respectively. Households with young children, who require protein and iron for growth, are more adversely affected. I demonstrate that households reduce crop commercialization to safeguard calories from own-produced staples and cut their purchases of nutritious and cash-intensive foods. This reflects a risk-minimizing behavior under incomplete food and labor markets and binding caloric constraints. In line with this, I find no evidence of adjustments in off-farm labor. Findings suggest that on-farm adaptation alone cannot maintain diet quality under climate change, underscoring the need for integrated policies that extend beyond calorie sufficiency and pair market participation and labor market development strategies with climate-risk mitigation.

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