<![CDATA[Abstract. Howlader MS, Hasan MK, Rashid MU, Uddin ME. 2026. A gap analysis of farmers' exposure to extension strategies for promoting climate-smart agriculture in selected areas of coastal Bangladesh. Asian J Agric 10 (2): g100219. https://doi.org/10.13057/asianjagric/g100219. Climate change impacts are a serious problem for agricultural production and the livelihoods of coastal farmers. To deal with this problem, Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) has emerged as a holistic approach to enhance resilience and food security. In Bangladesh, adoption of CSA depends heavily on effective extension delivery. Hence, this study evaluated the farmers’ exposure to government extension strategies among randomly selected 388 coastal crop farmers using a structured, pre-tested schedule. Multiple regression analysis was employed to identify determinants of farmers’ exposure to extension strategies, while the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) matrix were used to assess the gap between farmer preferences and their actual exposure to those strategies. The regression model explained 59.4% (R² = 0.594) of the variance in farmers’ exposure to extension strategies. Among the explanatory variables, distance to the extension service center, contact with extension media, innovativeness, Knowledge of CSA, and use of ICTs positively associated with farmers’ exposure to extension strategies. Level of education showed a significant negative association with exposure to extension strategies, whereas extension media contact and ICT use were the most significant predictors. Farmers’ mean preference score (2.30) significantly exceeded exposure mean score (1.17), which indicates substantial gaps. This provides a policy message that improving farmer-oriented extension systems, providing ICT-based advisory services, and strengthening farmer access to information may enhance exposure to extension strategies and afterward may help in promotion of CSA in coastal Bangladesh.]]>
