Do Cooperative Governance and Social Capital Condition the Climate Resilience Returns to Precision Agriculture? Moderation Evidence from Smallholder Cooperative Members in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Precision agricultural technologies are promoted as tools for climate adaptation, yet little is known about whether the organisations through which smallholders access them shape the resilience they obtain. We test whether cooperative governance quality and social capital moderate the association between the adoption of precision agricultural techniques (PAT: precision irrigation, nutrient management, pest control and weather forecasting) and self-assessed climate change resilience (CCR). We used a cross-sectional survey of 357 members of 24 agricultural cooperatives from the four agricultural zones of Ogun State, Nigeria (92.97% response rate) and estimated a hierarchical moderated regression with mean-centred predictors. PAT adoption (B = .431, β = .463) and a combined governance and social-capital index (B = .218, β = .303) were each positively associated with resilience, and together with the interaction explained 41.0% of its variance. The PAT × governance/social-capital interaction was positive and statistically significant (B = .162, 95% CI [.033, .290], p = .014) but small, adding 1.0% of explained variance (Cohen’s f² ≈ .02). The estimated resilience slope of PAT rises from .431 at average institutional quality to .593 one scale point above it. The results are consistent with, but do not demonstrate, an institutional conversion mechanism, and the interaction is modest relative to the cluster-sampling and common-method concerns we discuss. For policy, public and donor support for precision agriculture in cooperatives should pair technology access with investment in the accountable management of shared assets and in member trust.