Climate-Smart Agriculture Practices for Reducing Production Risks for Smallholder Farmers

Dear Colleagues,

Smallholder farming systems play a central role in the food security of millions worldwide and are also highly vulnerable to climate risks (Morton, 2007; Lipper et al., 2014; Vignola et al., 2015). The global community has called for the promotion of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as a way to increase the resilience of smallholder farms to extreme weather events and their landscapes. To promote CSA for smallholder farming systems, interventions are required at different scales starting from agronomic practices in the production plot to institutional arrangements that promote planning and investments in support of CSA (Scherr et al., 2012; Campbell et al., 2014; Lipper et al., 2014).

For this Special Issue of Agronomy, we are calling for articles that expand our understanding of what is known and what further research is required to inform interventions that can support the capacity of climate-smart agriculture to provide on-site (at the plot level) and off-site (at the landscape level) adaptation benefits to reduce smallholders’ climate risks.

We thus call for research that sheds light on evidence and research gaps regarding the capacity of agronomic practices at the plot level to provide adaptation benefits for farming systems by regulating, in the face of extreme weather events, its soil and water functions, minimizing the occurrence of pests and diseases, and/or conserving relevant biodiversity. We also call for research that reports evidence and research gaps relevant for planning and innovations that promote CSA planning and implementation from the farming system to the landscape level and from within the agricultural sector (e.g., information and climate services for smallholders crop production) or beyond (e.g., watershed management promoting CSA).

Prof. Dr. Raffaele Vignola
Prof. Dr. Fulco Ludwig
Prof. Dr. Iwan Supit
Prof. Dr. Ronald Hutjes
Guest Editors

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