Background: Climate change inflicts negative consequences on food production especially on smallholder farms needed to achieve food security. Sustainable farming techniques seem to be the bridge between climate change and food security. Aims: To evaluate knowledge and practices of sustainable agriculture within smallholder farmers in the Bamenda Highlands, by identifying methods of pest and disease control, soil preservation options, and their different tillage practices, i.e., conventional versus sustainable practices. Study Design: Using a questionnaire survey. Place of Study: Bamenda Highlands, Cameroon. Methodology: A sample of 175 smallholder farmers (25 from each of the seven administrative divisions) were questioned about their tillage, soil preservation, crop protection, and knowledge of sustainable farming practices. Data collected were analysed and summarised to obtain frequencies and percentages. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to test for significant relationships between the pairs of variables (age, level of formal education, sex, some tillage and soil preservation practices). Results: Out of the 161 farmers who returned the answered questionnaire, 111(68.9%) agreed to have knowledge of sustainable farming but yet 158(98.1%) were still involved with conventional unsustainable practices such as tillage with the formation ridges, and 150(93.2%) used mineral fertilizers and pesticides. Crop rotation 102(64.2%), intercropping 110(68.3%), and legume integration 124(78.0%) were the most used sustainable farming practices. Sex (r=0.419, P=0.000), age (r=0.450, P=0.000), level of education (r=0.430, P=0.000), no till (r=0.19, P=0.016), crop rotation (r=0.158, P=0.040), and intercropping (r=0.227, P=0.045) all showed significant positive relationships with knowledge of sustainable farming at α=0.05. Conclusions: Sufficient knowledge and capacity development on sustainable farming may decrease usage of unsustainable farming practices, hence improving the adoption of sustainable farming practices.

Climate change and food security are among the pressing challenges facing humanity in the 21 st century. Soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, total nitrogen (TN), texture, and bulk density (BD) are important soil properties, which control climate change. Three land use systems (smallholder farmlands, grazing lands, and forest lands) that coexist in the Bamenda Highlands (BH) influence ecosystem services and induce soil degradation with the loss of SOC. The objective of this study was to evaluate the variation of SOC and some soil physicochemical properties as affected by the three land use systems (LUS). A total of 21 composite soil samples collected from 7 microclimatic zones of BH following "S" shape plots to the depth of 0 -30 cm, were analysed for moisture content (MC), SOC, TN, BD, available phosphorus (Av.P), pH and texture. The results revealed that grazing land had the lowest mean sand content (40.79 ± 4.07). Mean MC, TN and SOC (%) content were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in forest land than those in the grazing land and smallholder farmlands. Conversely, BD and Av.P were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in smallholder farmlands than grazing and forest lands probably due to different litter accumulation and agricultural practices. Moisture content and TN revealed positive significant correlations (p < 0.05) with SOC, while BD and Av.P revealed negative significant correlations (p < 0.05). Mean SOC density in smallholder farmlands (132.91 ± 9.48 tC/ha) was the lowest among the three land use types. Losses in CO 2 equivalence, as a result of land use change from forest lands to smallholder farmlands were 137.33 t/ha while that from grazing lands to smallholder farmlands were 109.13 t/ha. Total organic carbon (TOC) stocks differed significantly (p < 0.05) from smallholder farmlands (10.73 Mt) to forest lands (91.13 Mt). A sustainable farming technique that enhances SOC sequestration and minimizes soil CO 2 emissions is How to cite this paper: