Does adaptation to climate change promote household food security? Insights from Indonesian fishermen

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although climate change adaptation plays a vital role in improving global food security, little is known about whether it can increase household food security of small-scale fishermen. This study offers new evidence by investigating the effect of climate change adaptation on household food security, measured by the food insecurity experience scale (FIES) and food consumption score (FCS). The cross-sectional data were collected from 301 small-scale fishermen in East Java Province, Indonesia. This study applied two-stage residual inclusion (2SRI), and two-step predictor substitution (2SPS) approaches to solve an endogeneity issue in modelling the effect of climate change adaptation on household food security. This is achieved by considering the observable and the unobservable factors. The empirical result indicates that climate change adaptation significantly improves household food security. Further estimation also highlights the positive and significant effect of adaptation intensity on the food security measurement. Therefore, this study suggests that fishermen continuously apply adaptation strategies to improve their food security.