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Knowledge4Policy
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Supporting policy with scientific evidence

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  • Publication | 2026
Exploring the Impact of Climate Variability on the Resilience of Senegalese Farmers Through Nutrition, Economic, and Risk Factors

This study advances a novel, multidimensional approach to quantifying agricultural resilience to climate shocks by integrating economic, calories, and risk-based indicators. To accomplish this, resilience is defined in terms of the failure–recovery dynamics of net cash farm income (NCFI) and daily calorie intake. In addition, farmers' resilience is further evaluated by incorporating their risk preferences through certainty equivalents (CE). An integrated modeling framework, combining a crop model with a whole-farm system model, is utilized to simulate crop yield outcomes under three climate regimes: dry, normal, and wet. Then, the whole-farm system model is used to evaluate the impacts on households of eight agricultural practice interventions, which are defined by three plant densities and three planting dates. The analysis is conducted across four economic classes of farmers: very poor, poor, middle, and rich in Senegal's Groundnut Basin. Resilience is evaluated using a recovery-based framework that models disruption duration and treats the recovery period as a decision variable to be optimized. Risk is incorporated through a tool that compares alternative practices across different levels of risk aversion. Results demonstrate that while wealthier farmers often have higher incomes, they can exhibit lower resilience in calorie intake under shocks due to their higher baseline needs. Calorie deficiencies persist across all economic classes and climate scenarios. Notably, alternative practices improve resilience across districts, particularly in Thiès, where farmers demonstrate higher levels of recovery and higher CE values. This study presents a comprehensive resilience evaluation framework that provides robust guidance for policy decisions on climate-resilient farming interventions, adaptable to diverse agroecological and socioeconomic contexts.