Abstract Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) has emerged as a key strategy to address rising global food demand and persistent food insecurity while enhancing resilience to climate change. This study examines farmers’ perceptions of climate change and the socio-economic and institutional factors influencing the adoption of CSA adoption in Haryana, India, with a focus on Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) as a community-based approach for scaling climate-resilient strategies. Using a purposive multistage sampling design, primary data were collected from 240 farmers across two agro-climatically distinct districts—Kurukshetra and Sirsa—including both CSVs and non-CSV areas. The findings reveal pronounced regional heterogeneity in both perceptions and adoption patterns. While awareness of climate change did not differ significantly between CSV and non-CSV farmers in Kurukshetra, significant differences were observed in Sirsa, particularly in perceptions of recent temperature and rainfall variability. Multivariate analysis identifies institutional membership, crop diversification, and livestock population as key determinants of CSA adoption. Overall, adoption levels were significantly higher among CSV farmers, with target farmers exhibiting 9.7–17.3% higher adoption rates and control farmers 4.0–8.0% higher rates than non-CSV farmers, indicating substantial spillover effects. The widespread uptake of resource-efficient technologies, coupled with greater access to climate information, enhances farmers’ capacity to anticipate and respond to climate risks. These adoption outcomes have important implications for food security. Higher adoption—particularly in Kurukshetra—is associated with improved yield stability, water-use efficiency, and income resilience, while lower adoption in Sirsa may constrain these gains. The results highlight the role of behavioural and institutional factors in shaping adoption decisions and underscore the effectiveness of CSV-based approaches in fostering climate-resilient farming systems. The study emphasises the need for context-specific, farmer-centred policies that integrate technological, behavioural, and institutional interventions to advance food security in vulnerable regions.
Kaur et al. (Sun,) studied this question.