Journal of Agriculture and Ecology Research International

This study synthesizes existing research and initiatives on pesticide-free agriculture and climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in developing countries and nexus between the two approaches. Through a comprehensive review, we analysed the principles, practices, impacts, methodologies, implementation challenges, and future potential of these sustainable farming approaches. The study employs a narrative review of documents which include peer reviewed articles from Google scholars and reports of organizations on pesticide-free crop production, climate-smart agricultural practices and the nexus between the two. The review covers a period of 2017 to 2024. The findings highlight the critical need for adopting pesticide-free and CSA practices to address pressing environmental and food security concerns. It also identified significant barriers including financial constraints, technical capacity gaps, educational limitations, input availability, and land tenure issues. Despite these challenges, developing nations are actively pursuing solutions through international climate financing mechanisms like the Green Climate Fund, alongside domestic commitments such as public-private partnership. The review underscores the urgency of implementing pesticide-free and CSA strategies to simultaneously enhance environmental quality, public health, agricultural sustainability, and climate change mitigation through reduced greenhouse gas emissions. This is because of the nexus between the two approaches in terms of their practices and benefits derived from them. It was found out that pesticide-free agriculture is a subset of climate-smart agriculture, as both aim at sustainability in agricultural production, reduced gas emissions, and climate resilience. And adopting pesticide-free methods, farmers contribute to CSA goals, creating a synergistic approach for a sustainable food system. To realize these benefits of these two approaches, the study recommend a multi-stakeholder approach involving: strengthening extension services to bridge knowledge gaps between researchers and farmers; full engagement of all relevant actors across the agricultural value chain; enhanced farmer education and capacity building programmes, and improved access to necessary agricultural inputs. This collaborative framework is essential for overcoming existing barriers and accelerating the transition to sustainable agricultural systems in developing country contexts.