Working Paper Series

South Africa is a water-stressed country prone to multi-year droughts and water shortages (DWSs) which are being exacerbated by climate change. The DWSs pose unprecedented water challenges to farmers and lead to negative impacts on agricultural production, food security and rural employment. Hence, jeopardizing the national development plan which aims at enhancing the contribution of agriculture to the country’s unemployment and poverty reduction strategies. This paper investigates the factors that drive farmers' simultaneous adoption of six water conservation practices (WCPs)—drip and/or sprinkler irrigations (more efficient performing irrigation methods (MEPIDs)), conservation tillage, cover cropping, intercropping, mulching, and growing drought-tolerant crops and the intensity of their adoption. Using a sample of 555 farmers from the Limpopo province of South Africa, we estimate farmers’ adoption of these WCPs with a multivariate probit model and for the intensity of their adoption, an ordered probit model is estimated. Our results show that gender, age, education, farm size, offfarm and farm incomes, and access to credit, among other factors, induce the probability and extent of adoption of multiple WCPs. Additionally, we found a positive correlation amongst the combinations MEPIDs and cover cropping, MEPIDs and intercropping, MEPIDs and mulching and drought tolerant crops and intercropping, suggesting complementarity or the bundling of these WCPs. The study, beyond its academic contributions to the literature, provides policymakers with key insights for the design of relevant and effective water management strategies that improve water use efficiency at the farm level. It also offers farmers the guidance to prepare appropriately to cope with the effects of DWSs.