Agricultural Extension for Resilient Smallholder Farming Systems: Mapping Evidence across Climate, Market, and Livelihood Shocks

Smallholder farming systems are increasingly exposed to interacting climate, market, and livelihood shocks that threaten production, food security, income stability, and long-term adaptive capacity. This study conducted a PRISMA-ScR-guided scoping review to examine how agricultural extension supports resilient smallholder farming systems across climate, market, livelihood, and compound shocks. Following PRISMA-ScR screening, 58 studies met the eligibility and relevance criteria and were retained for qualitative synthesis. Framework-based thematic analysis was used to examine shock domains, extension modalities, resilience-building mechanisms, resilience capacities, farming and livelihood outcomes, equity dimensions, and evidence gaps. The findings show that the evidence base is strongly concentrated on climate shocks, including drought, rainfall variability, floods, heat stress, pest pressure, water stress, and crop failure. Market and livelihood shocks are less systematically examined, although they appear through input‒price increases, unstable markets, food insecurity, income loss, labor constraints, and gendered vulnerability. Extension was reported as supporting resilience through linked mechanisms of risk awareness, knowledge translation, social learning, access to inputs and services, market linkage, institutional brokerage, and empowerment. The strongest evidence concerns adaptive capacity and practice change, whereas absorptive and transformative capacities remain less consistently measured. The review proposes agricultural extension as a resilient infrastructure: a social and institutional system that connects farmers to knowledge, resources, markets, institutions, and collective learning. Future research should focus on mechanism-based, equity-sensitive, longitudinal, and compound-shock analyses, while policies should strengthen pluralistic extension systems that integrate climate, market, financial, digital, and livelihood advisory support.