Many people in African countries derive their livelihoods from agriculture. Therefore, unfavourable environmental and climatic conditions render them more vulnerable to increasing food insecurity and poverty rates. However, few studies have investigated how farmers’ adaptation strategies affect farm productivity and household food security in the Sahelian region, notably Mali. We analyse factors that influence adaptation strategies to climate change and the impacts of the adaptation strategies on maize productivity and household food security in southern Mali. Farmers use adaptation strategies such as organic fertilizers, changing planting dates and growing of short duration maize varieties to mitigate against the negative effects of climate change. We find that farmer experience, number of livestock owned, off-farm employment, access to credit, farmer association and technical training exert positive effects on the use of planting short-duration maize varieties as an adaptation strategy, while distance to the farm shows a negative effect. We observe that household size, experience in maize farming, number of livestock owned and technical training positively influence farmers to change planting dates as an adaptation strategy. The use of organic fertilizers and short-duration maize varieties promote maize productivity and food security. We conclude that building farmers’ adaptive capacity tends to reduce their vulnerability to climate change by increasing crop yields and food security.

This study examines how the use of climate information affects climate change adaptation measure adopted by household heads, using data collected from the Upper West region of Ghana. By estimating a recursive bivariate probit model, we show that the use of climate information has no significant impact on the adoption of a climate change adaptation measure. Household heads’ decision to adopt a climate change adaptation measure is positively and significantly affected by household size, membership in the farmer-based organization and their perceptions on climate variability. Household heads’ decision to use climate information is mainly driven by their marital status, access to extension services, perceptions on climate variability and TV ownership. Our findings highlight the importance of facilitating the formations of farmer-based organizations and increasing the farmer-to-extension ratio to facilitate the use of climate information and the design of climate change adaptation interventions.