Promoting climate-smart agricultural practices improves smallholder farmers’ knowledge and farming practices in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), but it is limited in scope and methodological rigor.
The review in brief
Interventions promoting climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approaches, such as farmer field schools and agriculture extension services, show improvements in knowledge gains and adoption of these practices by smallholder farmers in LMICs. However, due to methodological limitations, confidence in study findings is low.
What is this review about?
Climate change has been seen to cause extreme weather conditions and natural disasters such as heavy rainfall, drought, catastrophic storms, pest infestation, wildfires, flooding, and declining biodiversity, which in turn reduces global food production and security, particularly in developing countries. Women, who make up approximately 43% of the agricultural labor force, are the most affected by climate change threats due to their disadvantaged social, economic, and cultural position. For example, female farmers in developing nations have less access to modern technology, markets, information, assets, and credit than their male counterparts. CSA aims to prevent climate change and food insecurity by providing agricultural methods that increase production and income without disrupting the ecosystem and natural resources. Therefore, by introducing women farmers to CSA, we can improve their resilience to climate change effects by providing timely access to valuable information and user-friendly technology.
What is the aim of this review?
We conducted a systematic review of interventions aimed at promoting CSA practices in LMICs, with a focus on enhancing women farmers’ knowledge and adoption of CSA while discouraging harmful agricultural practices.
What were the main findings of this review?
The review analyzed eight impact evaluations that assessed the effectiveness of CSA promotion interventions. All of these interventions were knowledge dissemination approaches. All the included studies examined the impact of the intervention on both women and men farmers. However, studies explicitly targeting women farmers or providing sex-disaggregated data were lacking.
Four studies examined how farmer field schools, or their modification, could increase farmers’ knowledge about the benefits of CSA practices and their subsequent adoption. Only one study, which used participatory action research and awareness campaigns, successfully increased knowledge and led to the trial adoption of water-saving technologies among farmers in rural areas. In contrast, two studies that used video-assisted learning on botanical pesticide use and climate-resilient rice seed varieties found positive changes in farmers’ knowledge scores and subsequent adoption. Only one study aimed to incorporate a gender-focused approach by ensuring equal participation and representation of women in the training sessions. Another study investigated the link between weather and climate information services and the adoption of multiple cropping practices and water management and found that the use of weather and climate information services significantly increases the adoption of water management and multiple cropping practices.
Knowledge dissemination approaches were found to positively impact farmers’ knowledge and adoption of specific CSA practices. However, the evidence supporting this claim is uncertain. Significant gaps exist in sex-disaggregated data and crucial interventions, such as studies on financial incentives and institutional arrangements, which are essential in improving the adoption of CSA approaches.
What do the findings of this review mean?
These review findings imply that while knowledge dissemination approaches promise to advance CSA practices among farmers, the evidence is not robust across all dimensions. More research is needed, mainly to understand the role of gender and the influence of financial and institutional factors in promoting and adopting CSA practices.
How up-to-date is this review?
The review authors searched for studies published between January 2010 and February 2022.