Agricultural Horizons: Research, Technology and Sustainable Development Vol. 2

Agricultural extension and rural advisory services are being asked to respond to climate risks that are more uncertain, spatially differentiated and institutionally complex than the production problems for which many extension systems were originally designed. This critical narrative review examines how farmer-facing advisory services can support climate adaptation and mitigation, and how far the empirical evidence justifies the expanding expectations placed upon them. Literature published principally from 2007 to 4 July 2026 was identified through open scholarly databases and indexes, supplemented by citation searching and targeted verification of relevant journal literature. Evidence was appraised for causal identification, measurement validity, implementation specificity, external validity and the alignment between advisory inputs and farm-level outcomes. The synthesis indicates that the most defensible contribution of extension is not simple information transmission but the translation of climate knowledge into context-specific decisions through diagnosis, brokerage, co-learning and repeated interaction. Climate information services, participatory learning and digital advisory tools can improve knowledge and selected adaptive practices, but effects are heterogeneous and depend on trust, timing, local relevance, complementary resources and advisor capability. Experimental evidence shows that digital and video-mediated advice can change knowledge and practice in some settings, while well-designed null studies demonstrate that information alone is often insufficient. Evidence for mitigation is substantially weaker than for adaptation: most studies infer mitigation benefits from adoption of climate-smart or resource-efficient practices rather than directly measuring greenhouse-gas outcomes attributable to advisory intervention. Gendered access, digital exclusion, fragmented institutional mandates and weak frontline capacity further constrain reach and durability. The review therefore argues for hybrid human-digital advisory systems, stronger climate and facilitation competencies, explicit attention to distributional outcomes, and evaluation designs that measure multi-season resilience, welfare, emissions and cost-effectiveness. Extension can be an important component of climate-resilient agricultural transitions, but its contribution depends on the institutions, resources and decision environments within which advice is produced and acted upon.