Who Adopts Agroforestry in a Subsistence Economy?—Lessons from the Terai of Nepal

Abstract

Agroforestry is recognized as a sustainable land use practice. However, the uptake of such a promising land use practice is slow. Through this research, carried out in a Terai district of Nepal, we thoroughly examine what influences farmers’ choice of agroforestry adoption and what discourages the adoption. For this, a total of 288 households were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. Two agroforestry practices were compared with conventional agriculture with the help of the Multinomial Logistic Regression (MNL) model. The likelihood of adoption was found to be influenced by gender: the male-headed households were more likely to adopt the tree-based farming practice. Having a source of off-farm income was positively associated with the adoption decision of farmers. Area of farmland was found as the major constraint to agroforestry adoption for smallholder farmers. Some other variables that affected positively included livestock herd size, provision of extension service, home-to- forest distance, farmers’ group membership and awareness of farmers about environmental benefits of agroforestry. Irrigation was another adoption constraint that the study area farmers were faced with. The households with a means of transport and with a larger family (household) size were found to be reluctant regarding agroforestry adoption. A collective farming practice could be a strategy to engage the smallholder farmers in agroforestry.

What Makes Agroforestry a Potential Restoration Measure in a Degraded Conservation Forest?

“…The fact that farmers with more cultivated land tended to apply more complex agroforestry patterns with a greater diversity of plant species is in line with the results of a previous study in WAR GFP, in which farmers with a relatively larger area of cultivated land (more than 3 ha) exhibited a preference for tree planting, which brought benefits in the future [47]. A study in Nepal also confirmed that a large cultivated land area guaranteed more food security, and so enabled farmers to allocate part of their land for long-term investments, such as agroforestry with more diverse plant species [48]. Another study demonstrated that the size of cultivated land was a factor that affected the number of species planted by the community on their cultivated land in WAR GFP [8].…”

Rebuilding Tree Cover in Deforested Cocoa Landscapes in Côte d’Ivoire: Factors Affecting the Choice of Species Planted

“…The factors that are reputed to influence the adoption of agroforestry systems include the socioeconomic characteristics of the farmer (i.e., potential adopter: age, gender, education level, cultural and eating habits, on-farm income, food security, perceptions and attitudes towards trees, marketing of products, local knowledge, and well-being), the external environment of the adopter (land tenure and tree rights, market access), and factors related to new technology (labor requirements, investment cost, long-term nature of the investment, and expected benefits [24][25][26][27][28][29]). However, the relative contribution of these factors to the decision to adopt may vary with practice and context [25,[27][28][29][30][31][32]. For example, social network effects, ethnic group, and geographic zone were found to determine the presence of trees and their density on cocoa farms in the Soubré region in Côte d'Ivoire [20], as did the severity of cocoa diseases and the existence of programs for extension and certification of cocoa, However, in the humid forest zones of Cameroon and Nigeria, strategies for growing fruit trees were identified as suitable for market access, land-use, and access to forest resources [33].…”

Adaptation to climate variability of rainfed farmers in Seluma Regency, Bengkulu, Indonesia

“…Membership organization also affects the level of adaptation and has a positive sign. This means that the more active and participating in many organizations, the more farmers will be able to improve adaptation in dealing with climate variability, which is in line with research [34]. Furthermore, by being IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1016/1/012020 6 active in farmer groups, farmers can share problems and find solutions to the farming problems they face, especially those related to climate variability.…”