Climate change and variability are characterized by unpredictable and extreme weather events. They adversely impact the highly susceptible smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, who heavily rely on rain-fed agriculture. Climate smart agriculture (CSA) practices have been extensively promoted as offering long-term solutions to changing climate conditions, while enhancing the productivity and sustainability of African agricultural systems. Despite this, the adoption rate remains low among smallholder farmers. Understanding the factors that influence adoption of these practices among this key farming community is therefore necessary to increase their adoption. In this paper, we review and summarize findings from existing studies on the factors that influence the adoption of CSA practices by smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Our review reveals that land tenure security, access to information and extension services, and affiliation to group membership positively influence adoption. On the other hand, gender, risk perception, and off-farm income had conflicting effects by reporting both positive and negative influences on CSA adoption. We conclude that CSA adoption options are local-specific, and their development and implementation should emphasize locally tailored knowledge, skills, and resources.

The agricultural sector, a vital industry for human survival and a primary source of food and raw materials, faces increasing pressure due to global population growth and environmental strains. Productivity, efficiency, and sustainability constraints are preventing traditional farming methods from adequately meeting the growing demand for food. Precision farming has emerged as a transformative paradigm to address these issues. It integrates advanced technologies to improve decision making, optimize yield, and conserve resources. This approach leverages technologies such as wireless sensor networks, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, drones, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing to provide effective and cost-efficient agricultural services. Smart sensor technologies are foundational to precision farming. They offer crucial information regarding soil conditions, plant growth, and environmental factors in real time. This review explores the status, challenges, and prospects of smart sensor technologies in precision farming. The integration of smart sensors with the IoT and AI has significantly transformed how agricultural data is collected, analyzed, and utilized to optimize yield, conserve resources, and enhance overall farm efficiency. The review delves into various types of smart sensors used, their applications, and emerging technologies that promise to further innovate data acquisition and decision making in agriculture. Despite progress, challenges persist. They include sensor calibration, data privacy, interoperability, and adoption barriers. To fully realize the potential of smart sensors in ensuring global food security and promoting sustainable farming, the challenges need to be addressed.

Soil salinity poses a major threat to agriculture by severely limiting how well plants grow and produce crops. It strongly inhibits seed germination, a critical stage for plant life. Thus, it is critical to understand the complex ways salinity affects seed germination at the physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels to develop effective salt stress mitigation strategies. This review synthesizes the underlying mechanisms of how salinity inhibits seed germination, the observed impacts of this inhibition, and potential mitigation strategies. The review revealed that high salt concentrations reduce seed germination percentage and increase germination time through multiple mechanisms. They create osmotic stress that reduces water uptake, cause ion toxicity that disrupts critical metabolic activities, and induce oxidative stress. Furthermore, salinity can modify endogenous hormonal profiles, specifically by decreasing germination stimulants like gibberellic acids while increasing inhibitors like abscisic acid. The review finally explored the strategies to mitigate salinity’s adverse effects on seed germination. They include seed priming, a technique involving partial hydration of seeds in an eliciting solution, a promising biotechnological tool to overcome salinity problems during seed germination. Other approaches are the use of organic amendments and the breeding of salt-tolerant varieties. Future research should combine conventional and advanced molecular technologies to develop salt-tolerant cultivars to ensure food security in salt-affected agricultural lands.

Conservation agriculture (CA) is widely recognized as the cornerstone of sustainable agriculture. It prioritizes minimizing soil disturbance, maintaining permanent soil cover, and diversifying crop species to restore soil health and ecosystem resilience. This review synthesizes the effects of CA on the soil’s physical–chemical and biological properties. It demonstrates its effectiveness in improving soil structure, enhancing organic carbon sequestration, promoting microbial activity, increasing water-use efficiency, and reducing erosion and nutrient losses. The paper then highlights the broad environmental, economic, and social benefits of CA. These include biodiversity conservation, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved yields, and increased food system resilience. The review explores the synergistic role of technological innovations such as precision agriculture, remote sensing, and digital tools in scaling CA for higher productivity and sustainability. The review then examines how socioeconomic conditions, institutional frameworks, and policy interventions shape CA adoption and impact. Despite its growing adoption, CA’s successful implementation will require strategies adapted for local needs, capacity-building, and supportive, inclusive policies. Finally, the review identifies key CA research gaps and future directions. This provides a comprehensive foundation to advance CA as a climate-smart, resilient, and sustainable pathway to ensure global food security and environmental stewardship.

Although intensive farming practices have greatly increased food production, they have undermined the soil ecosystem services on which agriculture depends. Biochar application in soils is increasingly gaining worldwide acceptance as a means of addressing these environmental challenges while enhancing agricultural productivity. Biochar offers dual benefits that support food security and ecological well-being through enhanced soil fertility and plant nutrition. These benefits include water retention, promotion of soil microbial functioning, carbon sequestration, and nutrient absorption, among others. In spite of these known benefits, many studies continue to emphasize the roles biochar plays in enhancing soil health and crop yields but often neglect the influence of biochar characteristics, which are key in optimizing these soil ecosystem services. Thus, it is important to understand how biochar characteristics influence soil in supporting, regulating, and provisioning ecosystem services. This review offers a comprehensive and integrative assessment on how biochar’s characteristics influence key soil ecosystem services rather than examining each service individually. The focus is on how biochar feedstock material and pyrolysis temperature determine the characteristics of generated biochar and how these characteristics influence biochar’s efficacy in supplying soil ecosystem services and nutrient dynamics for enhanced crop yields.

Small-scale farms deserve attention and support because they play crucial and important roles. Apart from ensuring provision of food security, they also provide other economic, environmental, and social–cultural benefits. In the United States of America, these farms are agriculturally, culturally, and geographically different. They have varied needs that trigger an array of distinct biophysical, socioeconomic, and institutional challenges. The effects of these challenges are exacerbated by economic uncertainty, technological advancements, climate change, and other environmental concerns. To provide ideal services to the small-scale farm audience, it is necessary to understand these challenges and opportunities that can be leveraged to enhance their productivity and profitability. This article reviews the challenges faced by small-scale farming in the United States of America. It then reviews possible pathways to enhance their productivity and profitability. The review revealed that U.S. small-scale farms face several challenges. They include accessing farmland, credit and capital, lack of knowledge and skills, and technology adoption. Others are difficulties to insure, competition from corporations, and environmental uncertainties associated with climate change. The paper then reviews key pathways to enhance small-scale farmers’ capacities and resilience with a positive impact on their productivity and profitability. They are enhanced cooperative extension services, incentivization, strategic marketing, annexing technology, and government support, among others. Based on the diversity of farms and their needs, responses should be targeted towards individual needs. Since small-scale farm products have an effect on human health and dietary patterns, strategies to increase productivity should be linked to nutrition and health.