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Overcoming barriers to climate-smart agriculture in South Asia

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Despite the promise of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) to improve food security in South Asia, most CSA practices and technologies have not been widely adopted. We identify the key barriers to CSA adoption in South Asia and suggest strategies to overcome them to increase CSA adoption at scale.

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Acknowledgements

A.I. and M.J. acknowledge the funding support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (grant no. 18-LCLUC18_2-0025). T.J.K., T.B.S. and V.K. acknowledge the support from the CGIAR initiative Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA). T.B.S. also acknowledges the support from the CGIAR initiative Mitigate+: Research for Low Emissions Food Systems. M. Gardezi acknowledges funding support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (grant no. 2202706) and United States Department of Agriculture (award no. 2023-67023-40216). S.K. acknowledges support from the Government of Odisha, India.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO, USA

    Asif Ishtiaque

  2. School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Asif Ishtiaque, Rajiv Ghimire & Meha Jain

  3. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Timothy J. Krupnik & K. M. Zasim Uddin

  4. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Hyderabad, India

    Vijesh Krishna

  5. Department of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh

    Md. Nasir Uddin

  6. International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Jeetendra Prakash Aryal

  7. International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) South Asia Regional Center, Varanasi, India

    Amit Kumar Srivastava

  8. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru, India

    Shalander Kumar

  9. Pakhtunkhwa Economic Policy Research Institute (PEPRI), Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

    Muhammad Faisal Shahzad

  10. Punjab Agricultural University-Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Amritsar, India

    Rajan Bhatt

  11. Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Maaz Gardezi

  12. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati (IIT Tirupati), Yerpedu, India

    Chandra Sekhar Bahinipati

  13. Khalilganj School & College, Kurigram, Bangladesh

    Shahnaz Begum Nazu

  14. Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU), Gazipur, Bangladesh

    Asif Reza Anik

  15. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Texcoco, Mexico

    Tek B. Sapkota

  16. Department of Economics & Politics, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India

    Madhusudan Ghosh

  17. Department of Life Sciences, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Nepal

    Roshan Subedi

  18. National Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (NCIB), PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

    Asif Sardar

  19. Department of Hunger and Livelihoods, Save the Children, Washington DC, USA

    Arun Khatri-Chhetri

  20. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ, USA

    Md. Shahinoor Rahman

  21. Department of Primary Industries and Rural Development, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Balwinder-Singh

Authors
  1. Asif Ishtiaque
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  2. Timothy J. Krupnik
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  3. Vijesh Krishna
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  4. Md. Nasir Uddin
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  5. Jeetendra Prakash Aryal
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  6. Amit Kumar Srivastava
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  7. Shalander Kumar
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  8. Muhammad Faisal Shahzad
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  9. Rajan Bhatt
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  10. Maaz Gardezi
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  11. Chandra Sekhar Bahinipati
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  12. Shahnaz Begum Nazu
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  13. Rajiv Ghimire
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  14. Asif Reza Anik
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  15. Tek B. Sapkota
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  16. Madhusudan Ghosh
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  17. Roshan Subedi
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  18. Asif Sardar
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  19. K. M. Zasim Uddin
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  20. Arun Khatri-Chhetri
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  21. Md. Shahinoor Rahman
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  22. Balwinder-Singh
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  23. Meha Jain
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Contributions

Conceptualization: A.I. and M.J.; writing (original draft): all authors; writing (reviewing and editing): A.I., M.J., T.J.K., V.K., M.N.U., J.P.A., A.K.S., S.K., M.F.S., R.B., C.S.B., M. Gardezi, S.B.N., R.G., A.R.A., T.B.S., M. Ghosh, R.B., A.S., B.-S.; visualization: M.S.R. and A.I.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Asif Ishtiaque.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Ishtiaque, A., Krupnik, T.J., Krishna, V. et al. Overcoming barriers to climate-smart agriculture in South Asia. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 111–113 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01905-z

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