Agriculture is currently facing major challenges related to ensuring the food security of a rising population and climate change with extreme weather patterns. At the same time, agriculture is a cause of environmental degradation, pollution and biodiversity loss. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is proposed as an approach that provides a roadmap to sustainable agricultural development. Despite this, farmer adoption rates of CSA practices and technologies in Europe remain low. This paper seeks to systematically review and synthesize the factors that facilitate or hinder farmers’ uptake of CSA in Europe. Out of the 2827 articles identified in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, a total of 137 research articles were included for analysis following the PRISMA methodology. The factors are categorized into seven categories, namely socio-demographics, psychological, farm characteristics, practice/technology-related attributes, biotic/abiotic, systemic and policy factors, with the majority of the studies focusing on the first four categories, while systemic and policy factors are relatively understudied. The results highlight for the first time that the adoption of CSA does not depend solely on farmer characteristics but also on the food systems and structures in which farmers operate, as well as the interactions with other value chain actors. To promote the adoption of CSA practices, extension and advisory services along with access to timely and reliable information, play a vital role in increasing awareness and in the provision of training and the encouragement of farmers’ behavioral shifts towards sustainable practices. From a technological point of view, adapting technologies to be easy to use, compatible with current farming objectives and cost-efficient will render them less risky investments for farmers and will foster adoption rates. Finally, support from the government in terms of financial support, subsidies and reduced bureaucratic procedures is crucial for motivating CSA adoption.

In a country like Ethiopia where the vast majority of the populations are employed in agriculture, land is an important economic resource for the development of rural livelihoods. Agricultural land in peri-urban areas is, however, transformed into built-up regions through horizontal urban expansion that has an effect on land use value. In recent years Ethiopia has been experiencing rapid urbanization, which has led to an ever-increasing demand for land in peri-urban areas for housing and other nonagricultural activities that pervades agricultural land. There is a high demand for informal and illegal peri-urban land which has been held by peri-urban farmers, and this plays a vital role in the unauthorized and sub-standard house construction on agricultural land. This urbanization has not been extensively reviewed and documented. In this review an attempt has been made to assess the impacts of rapid urbanization on agricultural activities. Urban expansion has reduced the areas available for agriculture, which has seriously impacted upon peri-urban farmers that are often left with little or no land to cultivate and which has increased their vulnerability. Housing encroachments have been observed to be uncontrolled due to a weak government response to the trend of unplanned city expansion. This has left peri-urban farmers exposed to the negative shocks of urbanization because significant urbanization-related agricultural land loss has a positive correlation with grain production decrease. Appropriate governing bodies should control urban development in order to control the illegal and informal spread of urbanization on agricultural land that threatens food production.

Marketing outlets choice is one of the most important farm household decisions to sell their produce and has a great impact on household income. Though the study area has great potential of honey production, the farmers in the study area faced the marketing problem in choice of appropriate honey market outlets. This study was therefore carried out to analyze determinants of honey producers’ market outlet choice decisions in Chena district. A total of 154 honey-producing households were surveyed, and the data obtained were analyzed by using multivariate probit model. The results show that most sampled households in the study area sell their honey to cooperative outlet as compare to other outlets. The results of the econometric model show the dependency of household level marketing decisions as a strategy to maximize their incomes in the long term. The model results also reveal that the quantity of honey sold, frequency extension contact, beekeeping experience, distance to nearest market, market information about each outlet, cooperative membership, and trust in buyers determine market outlet choice decision of honey producers in the study area. Expanding equal accessibility of infrastructures, establishing honey collection centers in potential production areas, increasing the frequency of extension contact, and organizing additional beekeepers into honey cooperatives is suggested.