1. Introduction

The need to develop rural communities in terms of productivity and convenience, so as to curb urban migration has received much attention in the last decade. First, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), as part of its mission, commenced the installation of solar-powered bulbs in many rural communities worldwide^[1]. This was followed in 2016 by the Cork Declaration, agreed amongst 340 representatives of European states towards ensuring that rural communities enjoy better lives. These efforts culminated into the coining of the word “smart village”, defined as a community that tries to develop current strength and resources, while making futuristic developmental plans on the basis of technology^[2][3]. While there are several thematic areas of priority within the smart village development framework, agriculture is seen as the most important of them all^[3]. Furthermore, the need to bridge the digitization gap between cities and villages, is also an important aspect, so that lives and livelihood can be improved. Since a smart village is one that seemingly accepts new technologies, precision agriculture uses ultra-modern techniques for animal and crop production, which saves time and reduces wastage, and meets the requirements of smart villages. This is crucial for the sustainability of smart villages^[4]. This is because improved food production and efficient animal management systems must be at par with village development, and must be continually transformed to influence the different aspects of smart villages, in terms of policy and practice^[5].

To effectively play its role in smart villages, precision agriculture covers smart and climate smart agriculture (CSA) techniques, and other aspects that are capable of ensuring higher agricultural production output in an environment-friendly manner, provides optimum income for the farmer, and is able to feed a growing population. Many studies showed that these processes can be realized through the adoption of ultra-modern agricultural techniques such as bio and nano technologies^[6], IoT and blockchain-based methods^[7], and drone technologies^[8], among other climate smart ideas. On the basis of this argument, efforts that tend to reduce farming losses, increase yield, as well as monitor, detect, and potentially prevent plant and animal diseases are now being automated, finding growing applications, and offering optimal solutions. Based on the forgone explanations, the current study attempts to establish smart and CSA trends

2. Moving towards Climate-Smart Agriculture

Having established in Section 2.1 that agriculture is one of the most important factors to be considered in smart village development, it is crucial to stress that climate change is a major stressor for agricultural development of rural communities^[9]. The implication is that developing an agriculturally-smart village entails accepting the concept of climate-smart agriculture. Agricultural risk posed by climate is a threat to food security. As a result, there is an urgent need to effectively manage agricultural production, while fighting climate change through adaptation, resilience and mitigation^[10]. This is what climate-smart agriculture offers.

There is currently no unified definition for climate-smart agriculture (CSA). In fact, almost every new study within the framework of smart-agriculture, views CSA in a slightly unique way. Nevertheless, to build a strong foundation for climate-smart agricultural framework in smart village development, the current study adopts existing knowledge and definitions, to coin a new and more robust definition for the term. Table 2 presents some definitions put forward by climate change and agricultural scholars and research organizations. Keywords derived from the definitions show that each has one or more shortcomings. As a result, it might be difficult to build the concept of smart village on a definition that lacks one or more fundamental aspects.

Table 2. Definitions of CSA.

Given the definitions in Table 2, considerable aspects of climate-smart agriculture include; capacity building, sustainability, emission reduction, vulnerability reduction, profit, food security, transformation, new knowledge, new technology, and productivity. By linking the above keywords together, we define climate-smart agriculture as a “transformative and sustainable kind of agriculture that tries to increase efficiency (productivity) in food security and production systems, using a combination of the pillars of climate change (adaptation, resilience, and mitigation) as well as smart and new technological knowledge, that do not only build capacity of farmers’ in terms of farming techniques, but also increase profit, reduces vulnerability of the systems as well as their results (farm products/animals), through the reduction of GHG emissions.”

While it can be argued that the list of keywords suggested within the current study is not exhaustive, many other definitions tend to be built around at least one of these keywords. Figure 1 is a diagrammatical representation of the main aspects of climate-smart agriculture for which it stands as a significant part of a smart village. The implication of the above expository listing of the fundamental parts of climate-smart agriculture means that for a smart village to be so called, it must strive to maintain within its agricultural systems all different aspects of CSA. Furthermore, other aspects of the smart culture within the smart village setting; smart energy management, smart living and smart healthcare, etc., must tap from these fundamental attributes of CSA, in order to provide robust services in their smart village functions.

Figure 1. Key aspects of climate-smart agriculture (CSA).

In demonstrating whether CSA could increase rice yield in China, Xiong et al.^[20] [79] used crop simulation models; version 0810 of the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model [80]^[21], and version 4.0 of the so-called DSSAT, an acronym for Decision Support System for Agro-technology Transfer [81]^[22], respectively. It was observed that these software simulations that gave ideas on cultivar improvement and optimization of management practices for rice due to climate change, led to increased rice production. The EPIC models specifically yielded over 2000 kgha⁻¹ during the 30-year period under review^[20].

Rural African farmers tend to suffer a lot from adverse weather conditions. This further creates a need for cheap and reliable weather forecast system. To attend to such needs in Nigeria [82]^[23], a cheap automatic weather station that functions on solar energy was designed. By linking meteorological sensors to microcontrollers, the farmer could gain access to processed information related to weather, through a television screen. A thermometer collects temperature information, while the anemometer and LDR measures wind speed and sunlight, respectively. Embedded temperature sensors within the microcontroller receives analog information gathered by the thermometer and converts it to digital signals^[23] [82]. In some cases, unprocessed data can also be sent to farmer’s mobile phones. The cheap rate of the unit shows that it can serve as a very good system for crop management and food security, in the least developed nations.

In a research carried out by Tenzin et al. [83]^[24], to ensure effective weather monitoring around a farm, the authors designed a very cheap cloud-based weather measurement unit, using an integration of different unique weather sensors. The system, which is made up of a base and a weather station, as well as a display unit, is capable of effectively gathering humidity, temperature, wind direction, wind speed, and many other weather data types. By experimenting its usage and statistically analyzing gathered data, it was observed that the unit provided similar results as the Davis Vantage Pro2 weather monitor, which was pre-installed on the same farm, thus, offering a cheaper option [83]^[24].

In a bid to design an integrated farm that efficiently manages water and reduces climate-demanding inputs, Doyle et al.^[25] [84] designed an aquaponics unit for vegetables and fish. The design consists of a 12V DC pump that delivers water from the fish tank to the flood tank, which then supplies the area where the crops are planted at a constant rate. As soon as water is removed from the fish pond, it is carried by gravity through the grow bed area, where it is stored until it is needed for watering the vegetable bed. The pump is powered using a solar panel of 150-Watt with a 120 Ah battery.

Having described some smart agricultural and climate-smart agricultural studies, it is important to note that while smart agriculture is mostly developed, research on CSA is relatively new and still at the level of policy and framework description [85]^[26]. In a systematic review study by Chandra et al. [85]^[26], the authors observed that research on CSA is mainly divided into three parts; global policy and plans around the world concerning further development of the concept, scientific research directions, and integration of pillars of the concept (which includes; adaptation, resilience, mitigation, and food security). With respect to CSA policy framework developed by the World Bank, Taylor [86] ^[27]faulted the fundamental make-up of the concept on the following grounds.

• There are no explicit conditions that can be referred to as success of CSA, which makes certain fundamental aspects like productivity, completely implicit.
• Being an important part of sustainability, resilience as pointed out within World Bank’s CSA framework is not defined, thus, leaving the term implicit.
• Given an absence of conceptual framework for CSA, literature relating to the topic are merely based on success stories of some normative research on agricultural improvement.
• CSA tries not to be involved with how consumer sovereignty influences food production around the world, towards the consumption demands of the elite.

Given these fundamental shortcomings of CSA [86] ^[27]‘climate-wise food system’ is suggested as a more direct term that should be used to refer to sustainable food production systems, rather than CSA. Another criticism on the policy and framework of CSA comes with the injustice meted to smallholder farmers, as a result of the implementation of the concept [87]^[28]. By administering interview to some CSA experts, analysis based on a number of ethical positions showed that implementation of climate-smart agricultural approaches is not fair, especially with respect to allocation of income benefits and challenges of cost associated with emission reduction [87], among smallholders farmers and small agricultural processing industries. Budiman^[28] [87] further argued that based on how climate justice works, sharing of income benefits should depend on the financial capability of farmers.

In a comparative study of Philippines and Timor-Leste, five important features of climate-smart agricultural practices were observed by Chandra and McNamara [88]^[29]; strategies at country-specific institutional levels; delegated financial procedures; the state of the market; technology; and knowledge. In the two countries, CSA was used to resolve climate vulnerability challenges more than it was associated with emission reduction goals [88]^[29]. Overall, the researchers observed that advancing the course of CSA in these countries might involve multi-stakeholder approaches that cuts across different levels of participation, both within and outside the farm, rather than mere technical CSA developmental inputs [88]^[29]. From the above arguments for and against CSA, it is clear that while there are still fundamental challenges revolving round the CSA concept, the terms might likely continue to be utilized for agricultural problem solving, until it attains uniformity and intersection of ideologies, amongst researchers and policy makers.