Abstract
Land degradation has reduced agricultural productivity in Nepal’s Terai.
This has raised concern over the viability of conventional agriculture
of the Terai farming system. Agroforestry can be a potential solution to
the above problem. This paper aims at identifying socio-economic
biophysical and institutional factors affecting the adoption of
agroforestry with respect to conventional agriculture. Data were
collected from a survey of 288 households through a face-to-face
interview. A multinomial logistic regression (MNL) was run with
conventional agriculture as a base category. It was found male-headed
households were more likely to adopt agroforestry. Having an off-farm
income source was positively associated with the adoption decision of
farmers as it provides a safety net in case of crop failure. Landholding
size was found as a major constraint to adoption. Therefore, smallholder
farmers were reluctant to adopt Agroforestry as sparing a part of
farmland for tree planting means reducing field crop production and thus
failing to meet their annual food demand. Some other variables affecting
positively include livestock herd size, provision of extension service,
home-to-nearest government forest distance, farmers’ group membership
and awareness of farmers about environmental benefits of agroforestry.
Irrigation was another constraint that has stopped farmers from
promoting the tree-based farming systems. The households with means of
transport and with larger family (household) size were found to be
reluctant towards agroforestry adoption.