Abstract
Land degradation is a critical issue globally putting our future
generations at risk. The decrease in farm productivity over the years is
evidence of land degradation severity in Nepal. Among the many
strategies in place, agroforestry, which is an integrated tree-based
farming, is widely recommended to address this productivity issue. This
paper thoroughly examines what influences the choice of agroforestry
adoption by farmers 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 being
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 means of
transport and with larger family (household) size were found to be
reluctant towards agroforestry adoption. A collective farming practice
could be a strategy to engage the smallholder farmers in agroforestry.