Climate-Smart Livestock Practices and Household Welfare: Evidence from Ethiopia

Climate-smart practices are widely promoted to raise agricultural productivity and resilience in developing countries, yet the evidence base remains concentrated in the crop sector, with little rigorous assessment of livestock-based interventions. Using nationally representative data from Ethiopia and a multinomial endogenous switching regression model that accounts for selection on observables and unobservables, we estimate the welfare effects of two climate-smart livestock practices---supplementary feeding and vaccination---adopted individually and jointly. Vaccination is associated with the largest differences, including significantly lower poverty and better food security, consumption, and dietary diversity; among small-ruminant keepers, it is associated with a poverty rate roughly eleven percentage points lower. Supplementary feeding shows smaller associations concentrated among small-ruminant producers. Contrary to expectations, joint adoption does not outperform vaccination alone, indicating limited complementarity between the two practices. The findings are consistent with animal health being a high-return entry point for improving rural welfare and point to small-ruminant systems as a promising target for inclusive livestock development.