Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) offers potential solutions for enhancing productivity, building resilience, and mitigating climate change, yet, successful implementation depends on farmer’s understanding of CSA practices across multiple levels. This study assessed smallholder farmer’s levels of awareness, knowledge and understanding of principles of 13 CSA practices, examining variations by gender and education. A cross-sectional survey of 400 smallholder farmers collected data on three levels per practice: awareness (heard of practice), knowledge (know how to implement), and understanding of principles (comprehend underlying concepts). Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, chi-square tests, correlation analyses, and progression analysis supported with non-parametric alternatives and robustness checks confirmed results. Awareness ranged from 47% (improved varieties) to 100% (intercropping). Knowledge levels were generally lower with least gap for rainwater harvesting (81.0% aware vs. 39% knowledge). Three distinct patterns emerged: (1) awareness exceeding knowledge (superficial awareness) for rainwater harvesting, agroforestry, and bio-fertilizers; (2) knowledge exceeding awareness (terminology mismatch) for improved varieties and soil fertility management; and (3) aligned awareness and knowledge for remaining practices. Women showed significantly higher awareness, knowledge, and understanding of principles than men (Cohen’s d > 0.9). Education strongly associated with awareness and knowledge (η2 = 0.65, 0.70) respectively but weakly with principles (η2 = 0.03). Secondary education was a critical threshold; less-educated farmers had 0% awareness of four practices (conservation tillage, cover cropping, soil fertility management and water-efficient irrigation). Composite measures addressing terminology mismatches showed true familiarity with improved varieties at 82.5% versus 47.0% awareness. Farmer population showed polarization: 54.2% had high awareness (10–13 practices) whereas 15.0% had very low awareness (0–3 practices). From the finding, we conclude that effective CSA promotion requires targeted awareness campaigns for low-awareness technologies, gender responsive approaches that recognize women’s high awareness, and education sensitive extension that builds on the strong education gradient while reaching currently excluded farmers.