Do soil nutrient management practices improve climate resilience? Empirical evidence from rice farmers in central China

This study aimed to examine the relationship between the adoption of soil nutrient management practices and climate resilience. We hypothesized that adopting soil testing and formulated fertilization would positively impact farmers’ ability to absorb and recover from climate-related shocks and stresses. We employed three economic indicators as proxies for climate resilience: net agricultural income, rice yield, and rice productivity. Data came from a random sample of 753 rice farmers in Hubei, China. We undertook a two-step analysis approach. First, we estimated a Probit model to predict the discrete choice variable of adopting soil testing and formulated fertilization and then used ordinary least squares regression models to examine the effect of soil nutrient management and other control variables on climate resilience indicators. Second, we performed endogenous switching regression to address the potential selection bias in the choice of adopting soil nutrient practices. Our results showed that younger, those with higher levels of education and large-scale farmers were more likely to adopt the soil testing and formulated fertilization. Our study provided evidence that the adoption of soil testing and formulated fertilization significantly enhanced the climate resilience of rice producers in central China. The adoption of soil nutrient management technologies increased net agricultural income, rice yield, and productivity, with estimated causal effects of 5.63% (p < 0.01), 4.44% (p < 0.01), and 2.84% (p < 0.05), respectively. Our findings provide further insight into the role and importance of soil nutrient management in promoting climate resilience in China.