Abstract Shifting to agricultural practices with Climate –smart Agriculture (CSA) potential is crucial in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This study applied choice experiment data collected from 548 farm households across two geopolitical zones in Nigeria to assess the preferences for shifting to CSA among smallholders’ farmers using Best Worst Scaling (BWS) technique. Data analysis within ranked –ordered logit regression framework revealed that stronger preference was given to GAPs with manure followed by GAPs without manure and agroforestry across the three models. However, the farmers show strong preference for status quo as against agroforestry in the less restrictive model. Also, farming households’ attribute stronger preference to cultivating agroforestry on freehold and communal lands followed by strong preference for cultivating agroforestry and GAPs with manure on lease and communal land respectively. This shows that tenure type was only important for a shift to agroforestry and GAPs with manure. Willingness to accept (WTA) results suggested that farming households were willing to accept $237/ha & $137/ha to embrace GAPs with and without manure respectively while they were willing to pay $204/ha to avoid shifting to agroforestry in the study area.