Climate change is one of the biggest challenges that small holder farmers face in Sub-Saharan Africa, including
Zambia. In response to this, various interventions such as Agroforestry (AF) and Conservation Agriculture (CA)
have been promoted within the country so as to enhance uptake among farmers and ultimately mitigate climate
change. However, the adoption rates of these technologies has been low. To understand the adoption process
several adoption studies have focused on the effects of socio-economic and other institutional factors on
adoption of the technologies. The direct link between small holder farmer’s climate change awareness and the
uptake of both AF and CA is an area that has received less attention among these studies. This paper estimates
the effect of climate change awareness on the adoption of AF and CA, and establishes whether the adoption of
the two technologies is jointly determined in Zambia. Data used emanated from the Indaba Agricultural Policy
Research Institute (IAPRI) and University of Zambia (UNZA) Climate Change and Land Use Project that
implemented a supplemental climate change survey in 2013 on Rural Agricultural Livelihood Survey (RALS
2012) panel sample of 1,231 households in six districts of Zambia. Results showed that the majority of farmers
(77.2 %) were aware of climate change issues and their consequences on agriculture production and the
environment. It was also observed that holding other factors constant, a farmer aware of climate change and its
consequences was 6% more likely to adopt both AF and CA compared to those not aware. The decision to adopt
AF and CA was found to be jointly determined by farmers. In addition to climate change awareness, the other
factors affecting the joint decision to adopt the two technologies included gender, farmer group membership of
the household head as well as ownership of radio sets and rippers. There is need therefore to deliberately
increase climate change awareness among smallholder farmers and promote the simultaneous uptake of both AF
and CA through the mass media and the provision of an environment that increases accessibility to tools that
ease up the uptake of these technologies.