Clean Technology for Resource, Energy and Environment

Vol. 2 (2026)
Articles

From Adoption to Sustainability: Prospects and Barriers to Maintaining Clean Technologies in Nigeria’s Smallholder Farming Ecosystems

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  • Sani Abubakar Mashi,
  • Nenadi Rahab Oluyori,
  • Obaro Dominic Oghenejabor
Sani Abubakar Mashi
Department of Geography, Faculty of Geographical and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Abuja, PMB 117, Abuja, Nigeria
Nenadi Rahab Oluyori
Department of Geography, Faculty of Geographical and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Abuja, PMB 117, Abuja, Nigeria
Obaro Dominic Oghenejabor
Department of Environmental Management, Delta State University of Science & Technology, Ozoro, Nigeria

Published 2026-06-06

Keywords

  • Clean technology,
  • Smallholder farming,
  • Renewable energy,
  • Resource efficiency,
  • Environmental sustainability,
  • Nigeria
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

From Adoption to Sustainability: Prospects and Barriers to Maintaining Clean Technologies in Nigeria’s Smallholder Farming Ecosystems. (2026). Clean Technology for Resource, Energy and Environment, 2, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.65638/2979-2746.2026.02.01

Abstract

Smallholder farming systems are central to food production, rural livelihoods, and socio-economic stability in the Global South, yet their productivity and resilience are increasingly threatened by soil degradation, inefficient resource use, energy deficits, and climate-induced shocks. Clean technologies—spanning resource management, renewable energy, and environmental protection—offer potential to enhance productivity, reduce emissions, and strengthen resilience. However, evidence on their long-term maintenance, durability, and embedding within smallholder systems remains limited, and existing research often treats sustainability as an outcome of adoption rather than a staged socio-technical process. Addressing this gap, the study advances and empirically applies the Clean Technology Maintenance and Embedding Framework (CTMEF) in Nigerian smallholder agriculture, examining how technical robustness, institutional support, financial continuity, and market integration interact to shape maintenance performance and embedding outcomes. The findings indicate that sustainability is structurally constrained: technologies achieve durable embedding only when multiple enabling conditions are simultaneously strong, whereas high technical complexity in the absence of adequate institutional and financial support significantly increases the risk of failure. The study’s novelty lies in integrating cross-domain technologies within a unified framework, operationalizing threshold-based and multiplicative dynamics, and providing empirically grounded insights from a Global South context. These results inform actionable strategies—including participatory capacity building, institutional strengthening, policy alignment, and innovative financing—to enhance the durability, scalability, and transformative potential of clean technologies, advancing both theoretical understanding and practical guidance for resilient, low-carbon smallholder agricultural systems.

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