Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a promising concept in agriculture to deal with the climate change impacts through innovative policies/plans, approaches, and practices. This study presents the assessment and analysis of the concept, policies, and practices in relation to CSA in South Asia, particularly focusing on Nepal and India. Both countries have different climatic contexts, but most of the farmers rely on rainfall for agriculture, which is the main source of livelihood and food security. This study applied the systematic review of published papers relating to climate policies/plans and CSA practices in Science Direct (SD) and Springer Link (SL) for the period of 2009 to 2019 with specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. It was found that these studies had specifically focused on climate policies/plans and CSA practices chiefly focusing on agriculture and food security in these countries. However, the CSA practices were different based on the local climatic contexts either initiated by farmers themselves or supported by the government, non-government, and other agencies. Farmer-initiated CSA practices were mostly spontaneous, whereas institution-supported practices were planned, guided by the climate policies/plans. However, these policies/plans and practices lacked specific indicators to assess the successes. Many of these practices were common prior to the emergence of the CSA concept and approach. Thus, it is important to define and understand the CSA concept, approaches, and mechanisms through research, development, and promotion at the national as well as local levels.

This paper is a partial output of the JSPS Bilateral Joint Research Project (JPJSBP 120197904: 2019), “Moving Towards Climate Resilient Agriculture: Understanding the Factors Influencing Adoptian in India and Japan”, Principal Investigator: Maharjan, Keshav Lall, Professor, Hiroshima University.