The power of social capital in promoting climate smart agriculture practices among vegetable farmers in Northwest Ethiopia

Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices reduce the negative impacts of climate-related shocks on production. However, despite growing evidence on CSA adoption, limited attention has been paid to how different forms of social capital influence both the intensity of CSA adoption and the mechanisms underlying this. This study addresses this gap by investigating the impact of cooperative membership and social networks (SN) on the intensity of CSA adoption among vegetable farmers in Northwest Ethiopia. The analysis used primary data from 550 farmers and jointly applied a Poisson Endogenous Treatment model and a mediation analysis to account for selection bias and identify mechanisms. The results show that cooperative membership and SNs significantly influence the intensity of CSA adoption. Other household-level factors, such as sex, education, family size, landholding, distance to market, and experience of climate shocks, influence the intensity of CSA adoption. The treatment effect estimates indicate that participation in SNs and cooperatives is positively associated with higher CSA adoption intensity, with the effect varying across crop types. The mediation analysis revealed that SN and cooperative membership increased CSA adoption intensity both directly and indirectly through improved access to CSA-related information, input supply, and extension services. The direct effects of SNs ranged from 0.287 to 0.359, and those of cooperative membership ranged between 0.237 and 0.322. These findings underscore the need to strengthen farmer-to-farmer SNs to disseminate CSA-related information rapidly and to empower agricultural cooperatives to serve as institutional hubs for input supply and extension services, given their proven mediating role in increasing CSA adoption intensity.