<p>Climate change and food insecurity have led to urgent global concern. Climate-smart agricultural practices (CAPs) are effective strategies to support sustainable agricultural productivity under the new realities of climate events. Despite their potential environmental and economic advantages, the adoption of these practices remains low. Unstable farmland ownership may discourage small-scale farmers from adopting these practices. Therefore, we investigate the heterogeneous impact of land tenure security (LTS) on the adoption intensity of seven CAPs: reduced/zero tillage, ecological weed management, ecological pest management, water-saving irrigation techniques, legume rotation, soil fertility management, and climate-resilient varieties. This empirical study applies a Poisson model with endogenous covariate on primary data from small-scale rice farmers in Afghanistan. The study findings showed that the likelihood of CAP adoption among small-scale farmers was 42.85%, which is relatively low. The empirical results reveal that LTS significantly enhances the adoption intensity of CAPs by 69.82%. Furthermore, our findings reveal that the impacts of land tenure ownership vary significantly among landowners, depending on farmers’ characteristics and farm-level factors. Therefore, to encourage farmers to adopt more CAPs, policymakers may need to strengthen the land tenure system in developing countries, particularly Afghanistan, where land conflicts and inequitable tenure arrangements remain prevalent.</p>