Scoping Review of Climate Change Impacts on Smallholder Maize Producers in LMICs

A scoping review analyzing 38 empirical peer-reviewed articles on climate change impacts and adaptation among smallholder maize producers in low- and medium-income countries. The articles were published between 2008 and 2025, with the analysis revealing three main outcome variables: adaptation strategies, perception, and climate awareness.

Use Cases

• Analyze the geographic distribution of studies, which are concentrated in Ethiopia (19%), Ghana (19%), and Zimbabwe (14%), to identify research gaps in other LMICs.
• Compare the prevalence of different research designs, such as cross-sectional (86%), exploratory (11%), and longitudinal (3%), across the 38 articles.
• Examine the application of theoretical frameworks, including random utility maximization theory (20%) and 13 other theories (52%), in climate adaptation research.
• Investigate the frequency of outcome variables, specifically adaptation strategies (70.3%), perception (21.6%), and climate awareness (8.1%), across the reviewed literature.

Strengths

• Systematic review of 38 empirical peer-reviewed articles following PRISMA guidelines.
• Clear temporal coverage of literature published between 2008 and 2025.
• Quantitative analysis of study characteristics, including outcome variables, geographic focus, and research design.

Limitations

• Limited to 38 articles after exclusions, representing a small sample of the available literature.
• Strong geographic bias, with studies heavily concentrated in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe.
• No studies incorporated moderation variables, and cross-sectional research design dominated (86%), limiting causal inference.

Provenance

Source

Scopus, Web of Science, and AGRICOLA databases.

Collection Method

Systematic scoping review following PRISMA guidelines; descriptive statistics analysis in Microsoft Excel.

Time Range

2008 to 2025

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-20, includes literature up to 2025.

Geography

Low- and medium-income countries, with heavy concentration in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Ethiopia, Ghana, Zimbabwe).