Climate-Smart Agriculture and Food Security: Role of Agricultural Extension Services in Adamawa State, Nigeria

The paper examined the role of agricultural extension services in promoting the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices and food security in Adamawa State, Nigeria. The broad objective is to assess the role of agricultural extension services in facilitating CSA adoption in Adamawa state, while the specific objectives were to evaluate the impact of CSA practices on household food security and to ascertain the impact of CSA adoption on household food availability, accessibility and stability. A multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted using structured questionnaires to collect data from a sample of 210 respondents comprising 162 farmers and 48 extension agents. Descriptive statistics was employed to analyze the objectives of the study. The results showed that 60.49% of the respondents were within the age range of 30-50 years with majority (75.93%) males respondents and had one form of education or another with 32.09% secondary education. The results also revealed that 75% of farmers had adopted at least one CSA practice, with improved crop varieties (55.56%) and conservation agriculture (51.86%) being the most widely adopted. Extension services played a critical role, with 68% of farmers attributing their knowledge of CSA to extension agents. CSA practices were found to significantly improve food availability and stability, although adoption gaps remained for practices like rainwater harvesting. The study concluded that agricultural extension services are pivotal in scaling CSA practices and addressing food insecurity in Adamawa State. However, challenges Insufficient knowledge of CSA practice (95.06%), Cost of labour (79.63%), Inadequate extension services (88.89%) and Lack of policy support (90.12%) among others. The study therefore recommended that policymakers enhance extension systems, promote CSA awareness campaigns, and provision of resource support for farmers.