Climate Smart Agriculture

Since 2010, the FAO has promoted climate-smart agriculture, which aims to reconcile productivity, adaptation, and climate change mitigation. Although it has been widely adopted by governments and donors, it remains highly controversial. Some authors view it as a repackaging of top-down modernization policies that marginalize small producers and favor technologies and market solutions. Political ecologists, on the other hand, emphasize the importance of equity, participation, and local knowledge for achieving true sustainability. In Rwanda, the Democratic republic of the Congo (DRC), and Mali, implementation thus oscillates between standardized technocratic approaches and more inclusive, culturally rooted practices.