Farming for the future: Prioritization of climate-smart agriculture technologies in SAARC countries

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is pivotal in combating the impacts of climate change on global agriculture and food security. It has increasingly gained prominence as an adaptation strategy against the adverse impacts of climate change on agriculture, particularly in South Asia. However, scaling up the adoption of CSA interventions becomes critical, due to predominantly small and marginal nature of landholdings in the region, various institutional and policy constraints, and trade regulations and barriers. Another significant challenge lies in categorizing and prioritizing the multitude of technologies considered to be climate smart. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the different CSA technologies within the socio-economic context of six South Asian countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, with the main objective of proioritization and scaling-up of these methods. The study begins by compiling an inventory of existing technologies and subsequently prioritizing them by using the World Bank (WB) CSA Technology Index. Secondly, the study tries to address the key challenges and propose policy measures to upscale the adoption of CSA technologies in these countries using participatory research conducted with the key stakeholders in these countries. The participatory research provided valuable insights, revealing critical policy and institutional barriers, and providing a basis for framing strategies and policy solutions to facilitate wider adoption of CSA technologies in the region.