###### Abstract  
West Africa faces a complex range of challenges arising from climatic, social, economic, and ecological factors, which pose significant risks. The rapidly growing population, coupled with persistently low agricultural yield, further exacerbates these risks. A state-of-the-art monitoring and data derivation of agricultural systems are crucial for improving livelihoods and enhancing food security. Despite smallholder farming systems accounting for 80% of cultivated cropland area and providing about 42% of the total employment in West Africa, there exists a lack of a comprehensive overview of Remote Sensing (RS) products and studies specifically tailored to smallholder farming systems, which this review aims to address. Through a systematic literature review comprising 163 SCI papers sourced from the Web of Science database (Filter I), followed by a full-text review (Filter II), we analyze the RS sensors, spatiotemporal distribution, temporal scales, the crop types examined, and thematic foci employed in existing research. Our findings highlight the predominance of high to very high-resolution, multispectral sensors as the primary data source and we observe that a wide array of available sensors and datasets, along with increasing computing capacities, have shaped the field over the last years. By highlighting existing knowledge, this study identifies the potential of RS and pinpoints the key research gaps. This sets the stage for future investigations aimed at addressing critical challenges in West African smallholder agricultural systems. Africa; West Africa; review; remote sensing; earth observation; agriculture; farming; food security; monitoring; sustainable intensification 20251417  
smallholder farming is predominant, West Africa is considered one of the most important because of its geographical size and the potential for yield growth in the coming decades [4]. However, the large increase in population urgently demands enhanced production and improvements in the governance of food production systems. These improvements are also a prerequisite for achieving the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Food security plays a prominent role in SDG2 \"Zero Hunger\" as well as SDG1, as the agriculture and food sector is key to eliminating poverty for many people [1; 8]. More specifically, SDG target 2.3 aims to double the agricultural productivity and the incomes of small-scale food producers by 2030, in particular for women, indigenous peoples, and family farmers [8]. Smallholder systems are characterized by large yield gaps [9; 10], which arise from the numerous challenges they face. These challenges include their small plot size, often less than 1 ha, environmental variability, low soil fertility, mixed cropping systems, and suboptimal practices. These obstacles continue to impede sustainable improvements in agricultural productivity and quality [11; 12; 13; 14]. As a result, a large proportion of these households are themselves food insecure and fall below the poverty line. The probability of smallholders escaping poverty depends directly on their ability to increase the productivity of their crops [5; 15]. These constraints may be reduced through integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), improved crop-livestock integration, multi-purpose crops, and various other sustainable intensification (SI) practices [10; 16; 17]. Previous research showed that small-scale irrigation can play a pivotal role in agricultural production, reduce farmer reliance on the varying rainfall patterns that characterize the climatic conditions of sub-Saharan Africa, facilitate economic transactions, and improve community livelihood, wealth, and infrastructure [18; 19]. However, these solutions must consider a dynamic socio-economic and climatic context, where evolving urban demand, market access, IT dissemination, and social differentiation present both risks and opportunities [11; 16; 20; 21].