Smart Agriculture Technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa – A Review: Climate change is a major constraint to the progress of Africa’s agriculture, food, and nutrition security.

Authors:Richard Kombat 1,2,* , Paolo Sarfatti 1 and Oluwole Abiodun Fatunbi 1

1 Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, No. 9 Flower Avenue New Achimota Mile 7,Accra PMB CT 173, Ghana; psarfatti@icloud.com (P.S.); ofatunbi@faraafrica.org (O.A.F.)2 Faculty of Agriculture, University for Development Studies, Tamale P.O. Box TL 1882, Ghana* Correspondence: rkombat@faraafrica.org; Tel.: +233-203-835775.

Abstract:

Climate change is a major constraint to the progress of Africa’s agriculture, food, and nutrition security; its effect is tied to geographical position and driven by the limited adaptivecapacity of the agricultural households. The most vulnerable stakeholder group are the smallholderfarming households with limited resources and knowledge of adaptation and mitigation techniques.Sub-Saharan Africa owns more than 60% of the world’s arable land with over 85% of the farmersbeing smallholder farmers, who are predisposed to various risks. This paper analyzes the adoptionof climate-smart agriculture (CSA) processes and technologies by smallholder farming households inSub-Saharan Africa. The study used mixed methods and an integrative literature review. This reviewindicated that the knowledge of CSA technologies by smallholder farmers in Africa is increasing and,thus, concerted efforts to continuously generate CSA technology would contribute to the desiredpositive outcome. To accelerate the pace of adoption and use of the technologies, the linkage offarmers, researchers, and extension practitioners is needed. Measures should also be put in place toensure that CSA actions are implemented using bottom-up approaches.

Keywords: smallholder farming household; climate-smart agriculture; technologies; adaptation;food security; Sub-Saharan Africa; biennial climate-smart agricultural stakeholders conference; SDGs.