The international community has advocated the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as lower-income countries deal with the negative consequences of climate change. Scaling up such policies, practices, and programs successfully will require support from a variety of local stakeholders. Such support requires alignment between CSA solutions and the problem understandings of stakeholders. However, problem understandings can differ across individuals, stakeholder groups, and geographic areas. Consequently, we examine understandings of climate problems and socioeconomic and infrastructure problems related to agriculture among different stakeholder groups in Uganda and Senegal. We operationalized and measured these problem understandings following the detailed guidance of the political will and public will approach for analyzing social change. Semi-structured interviews elicited stakeholder-generated lists of problems for each group. Limited quantification of problem understandings and their relative importance or "ripeness" demonstrates how contexts might shape opportunities for CSA.