Climate smart agriculture: a thematic review
This review synthesises evidence on climate smart agriculture from FCDO programmes to increase productivity and build farmers’ resilience in Africa and Asia.
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Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) aims to increase agricultural productivity, improve adaptation to climate change as well as mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) Evaluation Unit commissioned a synthesis of 13 evaluations of FCDO Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) programmes. This aims to draw out learning on how we can better reduce smallholder farmers’ vulnerability to climate variability and shocks. The programmes sampled included CSA activities designed to raise agricultural productivity and/or build resilience to climate change and variability.
Main findings
The review found that CSA interventions were more likely to be successful if they:
- resulted in improvements in profit and productivity for farmers
- involved government and private sector stakeholders alongside farmers
- were supported by temporary subsidies, long-term private sector investment to ensure synergies between production, adaptation and mitigation
Future CSA programmes could enhance their impact through using carbon finance, such as climate or environmental service credits.
The report also highlights the importance of engaging with beneficiaries and robust monitoring and learning approaches, as well as evaluation after the programme activities have ended. These aim to improve the evidence base, on building resilience and on enabling farmers to adopt CSA in ways they can sustain.
Last updated 4 March 2022 + show all updates
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The management response to the evaluation report has been added.
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First published.