Skip to Main Content

Climate-Smart Agriculture

Selected e-articles

Abstract: Climate change poses a significant and escalating threat to global food security by exacerbating temperature extremes, altering rainfall patterns, and increasing the frequency of droughts, floods, and pest outbreaks. These stressors collectively reduce crop productivity, degrade soil fertility, and undermine agricultural sustainability, particularly in vulnerable regions dependent on rain-fed systems. This paper explores how climate-smart agriculture (CSA) offers a transformative pathway to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change while enhancing food production resilience. CSA integrates three interlinked pillars: productivity enhancement, adaptation, and mitigation through the adoption of stress-tolerant crop varieties, precision nutrient and water management, conservation agriculture, and agroforestry systems. Emphasis is placed on the synergistic role of improved crop breeding under combined drought and heat stress, alongside digital and biotechnological innovations that enable real-time climate risk assessment and adaptive management. Case studies from Africa and Asia demonstrate that implementing CSA practices can improve yields by 15–30 %, enhance soil carbon sequestration, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25 %. However, large-scale adoption remains constrained by inadequate policy support, limited access to technology, and insufficient awareness among farmers. Strengthening institutional frameworks, investing in climate-resilient research, and promoting inclusive capacity building are therefore crucial for scaling CSA innovations. This review study underscores that mainstreaming CSA into national agricultural development agendas represents a practical and sustainable strategy for safeguarding food security under a changing climate.

Abstract: Climate-smart agriculture promises to mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon in soils on working lands. However, this promise faces substantial policy challenges due to ecological variation, costly measurement, and uncertainty. We summarize the latest scientific literature on carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, and we describe the current policy environment. With that background, we present an economic framework for policy analysis. We conclude by emphasizing (a) the need for better measurement and for policy that is robust to poor measurement, and (b) the importance of improving agricultural productivity to avoid future carbon losses from expanded agricultural land use.

Abstract: Global climate change has a detrimental effect on agricultural production, leading to food insecurity. It is the primary factor limiting crop productivity in arid and semi‐arid tropical regions. The increasing challenges posed by climate change necessitate innovative approaches to sustain global food security. This review examines climate‐smart agriculture (CSA) as a viable solution to address these challenges. CSA integrates sustainable farming practices that enhance productivity, promote resilience to climate impacts, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve the adaptive capacities of agricultural systems. The review highlights key strategies within CSA, including the adoption of improved crop varieties, efficient water management, and agroecological techniques. It also discusses the socioeconomic implications of CSA, emphasizing the importance of stakeholder engagement and policy support for successful implementation. Relevant information was gathered using key terms such as CSA, climate change, adaptation, mitigation, and food security from databases like Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The review underscores the potential of CSA to ensure food security in a changing climate while contributing to environmental sustainability. There is a pressing need to strengthen government policies and international cooperation to fund climate‐smart agricultural initiatives. This includes promoting knowledge‐sharing and providing financial incentives for farmers who adopt sustainable practices. Additionally, it is essential to encourage farmers to diversify crops and integrate livestock and agroecological practices to reduce risks associated with climate variability.

Abstract: Without transformative adaptation strategies, the impact of climate change is projected to reduce global crop yields and increase food insecurity, while rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions further exacerbate the crisis. While agriculture is a major contributor to climate change through unsustainable practices, it also offers significant opportunities to mitigate these emissions through the adoption of sustainable practices. This review examines climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as a key strategy for enhancing crop productivity, building climate resilience, and reducing GHG emissions, while emphasizing the need for strategic interventions to accelerate its large-scale implementation for improved food security. The analysis revealed that while nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) has improved in developed countries, the global NUE remains at 55.47%, emphasizing the need for precision nutrient management and integrated soil fertility strategies to enhance productivity and minimize environmental impacts. With 40% of the world’s agricultural land already degraded, sustainability alone is insufficient, necessitating a shift toward regenerative agricultural practices to restore degraded soil and water by improving soil health, enhancing biodiversity, and increasing carbon sequestration, thus ensuring long-term agricultural resilience. CSA practices, including precision agriculture, regenerative agriculture, biochar application, and agroforestry, improve soil health, enhance food security, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. However, result variability highlights the need for site-specific strategies to optimize benefits. Integrating multiple CSA practices enhances soil health and productivity more effectively than implementing a single practice alone. Widespread adoption faces socio-economic and technological barriers, requiring supportive policies, financial incentives, and capacity-building initiatives. By adopting climate-smart technologies, agriculture can transition toward sustainability, securing global food systems while addressing climate challenges.

Abstract: Climate change and soil degradation threaten global agriculture, necessitating sustainable solutions. This study adopted a dual methodological approach, integrating a systematic review with quantitative bibliometric analysis to evaluate the potential of biochar in climate-smart agriculture. A total of 180 documents published between 2010 and 2023 were retrieved from the Scopus database. Using the Bibliometrix R package, the study conducted trend analysis, country-level publication metrics, keyword co-occurrence analysis, thematic mapping, and thematic evolution. In parallel, a systematic review guided by PRISMA protocols synthesized findings from 80 peer-reviewed articles. The bibliometric analysis showed that China contributed 18 % of publications, followed by India (13 %) and Pakistan (6 %). Thematic mapping identified biochar as a "motor theme" (a well-developed and central topic within the research field) closely associated with climate-smart agriculture. The study revealed biochar's multiple benefits: enhancing soil fertility, increasing crop yields (up to 340 % for potatoes), and sequestering carbon with a potential to mitigate 2.56 × 109 tons of CO2-eq/year, representing about 4.7 % of global annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. However, economic feasibility and long-term consequences, such as potential shifts in soil microbiota and nutrient cycling dynamics over decades, continue to pose challenges. The study highlights biochar's promise in addressing climate change and promoting sustainable agriculture while stressing the need for long-term field studies, mechanistic research, and transdisciplinary approaches for successful implementation. Policy incentives such as carbon credits, subsidized biochar production technology, and integrated agricultural extension programs could accelerate biochar adoption in smallholder systems. This study reviewed biochar's sustainability in climate-smart agriculture from 2010 to 2023. Bibliometric analysis and systematic review approaches were adopted. Recent advances, emerging trends, and future directions on the subject were analyzed. China, India, and Pakistan emerged as leading contributors in the field. Long-term impacts, economic viability, and adoption barriers are key challenges for biochar deployment.

Abstract: Agriculture, an essential driver of economic expansion, is faced by the issue of sustaining an increasing global population in the context of climatic uncertainty and limited resources. As a result, “Smart Farming”, which uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) to support autonomous decision-making, has become more popular. This article explores how the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, machine learning (ML), remote sensing, and variable-rate technology (VRT) work together to transform agriculture. Using sophisticated algorithms to predict soil conditions, improving agricultural yield projections, diagnosing water stress from sensor data, and identifying plant diseases and weeds through image recognition, crop mapping, and AI-guided crop selection are some of the main applications investigated. Furthermore, the precision with which VRT applies water, pesticides, and fertilizers optimizes resource utilization, enhancing sustainability and efficiency. To effectively meet the world’s food demands, this study forecasts a sustainable agricultural future that combines AI-driven approaches with conventional methods.

Abstract: Drought is arguably the most significant natural hazard affecting agricultural production across all climate zones. The negative impacts of prolonged and severe droughts on agriculture are far reaching and can have cascading effects on food security, economies, and ecosystems. There are effective long-term measures such as building reservoirs, improving early-warning systems, and developing drought-resistant varieties to mitigate drought impacts. These are often expensive and/or labor-intensive measures. We argue that multiple climate-smart practices are cost-effective measures to mitigate drought, especially for shorter-term drought. We synthesize the underlying mechanisms of these agricultural practices for reducing crop water stress. We also discuss the pros and cons of these agricultural practices, particularly the environmental impacts of these agricultural practices, and point out future challenges and opportunities to mitigate crop water stress. Drought is arguably the most significant natural hazard affecting agricultural production worldwide. We argue that multiple climate-smart practices are cost-effective measures to mitigate drought. We synthesize the underlying mechanisms of these agricultural practices for reducing crop water stress. We also discuss the pros and cons of these agricultural practices.

Abstract: Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) is faced with the conundrum of food insecurity due to climate change effects. Climate‐smart agriculture (CSA) is widely acknowledged as a way of promoting sustainable agriculture and food security. Given the importance of CSA in meeting food needs of households, the approach has received much attention in international, national, and local discussions. There exists extant literature on the concept in SSA; however, an assessment of how CSA has contributed to food security in the subregion is limited. As a result, this study aims to systematically review literature on climate‐smart agriculture and its contribution to household food security in SSA. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analysis was adopted for the review. Using the Mendeley database, 26 studies that directly established the relationship between CSA and food security were reviewed to determine the pattern of issues. The finding of the results revealed that food availability featured predominantly in all the reviewed articles followed by food accessibility. Food stability was the least featured component of food security in all the reviewed articles. The review also found that household characteristics, farm‐level characteristics, and institutional characteristics influenced farmers’ adoption decisions of CSA practices. Given the importance of food security in farm households in SSA and other destinations, achieving all the dimensions of food security means that there is the need for more research on food stability and utilization as majority of studies focused on food availability and accessibility. Again, governments in SSA should create avenues for building the capacity of farmer households to adopt CSA practices for improved food production and food security.

Abstract: The uptake of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information services (CIS) among Ghanaian smallholder farmers remains low despite their promise to address climate change risks. Yet, research on the barriers and knowledge gaps that prevent smallholder farmers from widely adopting CSA and CIS remains limited. This study explores the perspectives of multiple stakeholders on the key barriers and knowledge gaps impeding the successful uptake of CSA and CIS among smallholders in Ghana. Data were obtained from participatory research methods including national (n = 56) and regional (n = 47) stakeholder workshops and interviews. Data were transcribed and thematically analyzed. Results show that various intersecting barriers relating to funding, sociocultural, political, climate data and information, human resources, environment, and infrastructure hinder smallholders' uptake of CSA and CIS in Ghana. Results further reveal that uptake is hampered by some knowledge gaps, stemming mainly from the policies and their implementation approaches, capacity building, and empirical evidence of CSA technologies. Smallholders' uptake of CSA and CIS could be improved by designing appropriate interventions relating to financial and human resources, climate data and information, environmental regulations, and capacity building. These findings demonstrate the need for the government, non-governmental organizations, researchers, and community leaders to support CSA and CIS uptake in Ghana.

Abstract: Agricultural production in Kenya is predominantly rain-fed and highly vulnerable to climate variability and change. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is thus being promoted with the aim of increasing agricultural productivity, adapting to the changing climate, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Despite increased adoption of CSA practices by smallholder farmers, the heterogenous welfare effects are hardly understood as the results have been mixed. Moreover, despite the labour burden of rural women in agricultural production exceeding that of men– especially in Kenya–the drivers of adoption of CSA practices and the gender differential impact are barely understood. This study addresses these gaps by employing the probit model and the endogenous switching regression model to determine the drivers of adoption of CSA practices and the average and heterogenous welfare impact of adoption, including the gender differentiated impacts, using data from 1,809 smallholder farmers from diverse agroecological zones across 22 counties in Kenya. The results revealed that access to agricultural information, input subsidies, loans and credit and being a female headed household increases likelihood of adoption of CSA practices. Employment, access to off-farm income, higher household size and membership in local organizations reduces the likelihood of adoption of CSA practices. Further, the study revealed that adoption of CSA practices improves household welfare as measured by per capita monthly expenditure and savings, but the impact is significantly higher among female headed households compared to male headed households that adopted CSA practices. The study also found that non-adopters of CSA practices would be better off adopting CSA practices.

Databases

Newsletters and news sources

Further sources

If you are unable to access the article you need, please contact us and we will get it for you as soon as possible.

Data Protection Notice   Cookie Policy & Inventory
EP Library Catalogue
Journals on all devices
Search the EP Library Catalogue
Newspapers on all devices