Agricultural extension and advisory services (EAS) is an umbrella term that refers to organizations, individuals and activities that supply information and services required by farmers and other agricultural actors to develop their own technical, organizational, and managerial capacities for livelihoods and well-being improvement. Public and private sector EAS are on the frontline in supporting smallholder farmers to adapt to the changing climate as they engage in field level activities and work closely with farmers to provide new technologies, technical information, knowledge, and skills, as well as linking them to other rural actors. EAS also work with policy makers and development program implementers to disseminate information about and put into practice new agricultural interventions, programs, and policies.

Rising temperatures, longer droughts, more severe storms, warming oceans, and recurring floods are already threatening global agriculture and food security. Most smallholder farmers in middle- and lowincome countries have limited abilities to respond and adapt to these climate risks. While highly vulnerable to climate change, agriculture is also a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To strengthen the resilience of agriculture to changing climate, a two-pronged approach that supports adaptation – adjusting to actual or expected future climate change – and promotes mitigation – reducing greenhouse gases or enhancing accumulation and storage of GHG – is needed. Promoting these strategies at scale involves changing the behavior, strategies, and agricultural practices of millions of agricultural producers.

This brief discusses policy-level changes to enhance and strengthen the role and functioning of extension and advisory services (EAS) in addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Upscaling Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) entails changing the behavior, strategies and agricultural practices of millions of agricultural producers. Extension and Advisory Services (EAS) can play a very important role in upscaling CSA, but they need to be better organised to do so. This paper explores how EAS should be organized to support the upscaling of CSA by drawing lessons for EAS from four successful cases namely: natural resource management, crop management, varietal improvement and weather insurance. It used the Innovation Management Framework which identifies three elements that are critical for innovation: functions, actions and tools. To contribute fully to upscaling CSA, the paper argues that EAS providers need to broaden their mandate, partner with other relevant actors in the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS), deepen their level of engagement with the research, prepare for a long-term effort and seek to influence the enabling environment through policy advocacy