DETERMINANTS AND OUTCOMES OF CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE ADOPTION AMONG FARMERS: A BIBLIOMETRIC AND THEMATIC REVIEW

Abstract

Climate change poses an escalating threat to smallholder and commercial agriculture alike, prompting a rapidly expanding body of research on how farmers perceive, adopt and benefit from climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and related adaptation practices. This review combines a bibliometric analysis with a comprehensive thematic synthesis of 138 peer-reviewed, open-access journal articles indexed in Scopus and published between 2015 and 2025. Using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer outputs for annual scientific production, source and country contributions and keyword co-occurrence networks, the review first maps the intellectual structure of the field. It then synthesises findings across six recurring themes: the socio economic and institutional determinants of CSA adoption; gender dimensions of access and use; barriers and constraints; the range of CSA practices and adaptation strategies documented; impacts on productivity, income, food security and livelihoods; and the methodological approaches used to study adoption behaviour. The literature is heavily concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia, dominated by cross-sectional household-survey designs analysed with binary, multivariate and ordered probit or logit models, with an emerging but still limited use of experimental and life cycle approaches. Findings converge on a consistent set of adoption drivers-extension access, credit, land tenure security, farmer organisations, education and prior climate-risk experience-while gender, tenure and information asymmetries remain persistent constraints. The review concludes by identifying methodological, geographic and conceptual gaps, including a shortage of longitudinal and quasi-experimental impact evaluations, limited attention to Latin America and Central Asia and inconsistent conceptualisation of adoption itself and outlines priorities for future research and policy.