Does Zero Tillage Improve the Livelihoods of Smallholder Cropping Farmers? Tamer El-Shater, Yigezu A. Yigezu, Amin Mugera, Colin Piggin, Atef Haddad, Yaseen Khalil, Stephen Loss and A. Aw-Hassan 1 (Original submitted October 2014, revision received April 2015, accepted July 2015.) Abstract The biophysical benefits of zero tillage (ZT) are well documented in the liter- ature. However, the literature on its economic benefits, especially in the con- text of small and medium-scale farmers in the temperate developing world is scanty. Using a study of 621 wheat farmers in Syria, we provide empirical evidence on the impacts of adoption of ZT on farm income and wheat con- sumption. We use propensity score matching (PSM) and endogenous switch- ing regression (ESR) approaches to account for potential selection biases. After controlling for confounding factors, we find that adoption of the ZT technology leads to a US$ 189/ha (33%) increase in net crop income and a 26 kg (34%) gain in per capita wheat consumption per year (adult equiva- lent) – an indication of meaningful changes in the livelihoods of the farm households. Besides the biophysical and environmental benefits documented elsewhere, our results suggest that adoption of ZT can also be justified on economic and food security grounds. Therefore, ZT can have sizeable impacts in transforming the agricultural sector in the temperate developing world pro- vided that the technology is well promoted and adopted. Keywords: Consumption; cropping farms; endogenous switching regression; farm income; livelihoods; propensity score matching; small holders; Syria; zero tillage. JEL classifications: Q12, Q15, Q16, Q24. 1 Yigezu A. Yigezu and all other authors, except Amin Mugera, are with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Amman, Jordan. E-mail: y.yigezu@ cgiar.org for correspondence. Amin Mugera is at The Institute of Agriculture of the University of Western Australia. The authors would like to thank the Australian Centre for International Agri- cultural Research (ACIAR) for funding this research, and anonymous referees for their valuable comments on an earlier draft. Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 67, No. 1, 2016, 154–172 doi: 10.1111/1477-9552.12133 Ó 2015 The Agricultural Economics Society