Conference Agenda

Agricultural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa is often pursued via on-farm innovations such as climate-smart agriculture (CSA), yet many households also diversify into off-farm self-employment. Evidence on the relative welfare gains from these pathways at the farm level is scarce. We use farm-level data from southeastern Madagascar and inverse-propensity weighting (IPTW) to estimate the mean difference of CSA adoption and off-farm self-employment on total household income and months of adequate household food provisioning (MAHFP). On average, CSA adoption is associated with higher income than traditional farming methods or off-farm self-employment. However, the CSA-associated income gains decline with farm size and become statistically insignificant at 1.37 hectares; beyond this threshold, marginal returns to CSA are negative relative to traditional farming practices. Off-farm self-employment shows a positive average effect but is not statistically significant at the current scale of investment. While CSA adoption alone does not translate into better food security outcomes, its combination with off-farm self-employment does. These results imply that CSA delivers income gains primarily for small farms, while larger farms face diminishing returns, and that off-farm activities may require greater scale or complementary investments to translate into household income growth. Agricultural adaptation policy leans towards the prioritisation of very small farms, placing larger ones in a structural “missing middle”. Policies should facilitate transitions to higher-return off-farm opportunities and integrate farm-size considerations into agricultural adaptation and rural transformation strategies.