Evaluating pro-poorness in Climate-smart agriculture

This thematic series will publish in 
CABI Agriculture and Bioscience.

Guest Edited by: Andrew Reid Bell1 and Marije Schaafsma2
1 Boston University, USA; 2 VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Aims and Scope: Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is defined by the FAO as an “approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural production systems and food value chains, so that they support sustainable development and can ensure food security under climate change.” Rather than a fixed set of practices, CSA is a paradigm of locally tailored on- and off-farm techniques, processes, investments, and capacity building to bring about improved agricultural productivity, improved resilience to climate change, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions where possible. 

However, the common requirement for investment in order to move CSA efforts forward, can constrain whether, and how, farming communities participate in CSA value chains. Moreover, the triple objectives of interventions can result in trade-offs between short-term local productivity gains, long-term local resilience and global mitigation benefits. Other barriers towards uptake include lack of success stories, skills, extension services and regulatory systems. The question of ‘CSA for whom?’ is also central to debates about the role of agroecology versus ‘modern technology’ in CSA, and subsequently the involvement of different actors - from grassroot organisations to multinationals. In this special issue, we hope to examine this problem. 

Manuscripts considered: We are soliciting analyses of CSA projects, programmes or other interventions along the CSA value chain, inclusive of empirical analyses, meta-analyses, systematic reviews or critical essays that inform the central question of “Where and how is CSA the most pro-poor?”  That is, in what ways do we see CSA initiatives reach the most deprived members of agricultural communities?

Interested contributors are encouraged to reach out to the Guest Editors (bellar@bu.edu and m.schaafsma@vu.nl) as soon as possible, to ensure their manuscript is within scope. 

Submit your manuscript now

Submission Instructions: Prior to submission, please ensure you have carefully read the submission guidelines for the journal. To ensure that you submit to the correct article collection, please select 'Evaluating pro-poorness in Climate-smart agriculture' in the drop-down menu upon submission; in addition, indicate within your cover letter that you wish for your manuscript to be considered within this thematic series. 

All submissions will undergo rigorous peer review and accepted articles will be published within the journal as a collection. 

Articles published in this collection: