Smallholders’ perspectives on restoring farmlands in western India

Agroforestry adoption by smallholders globally has been limited despite long-term encouragement from national policies. In India, a dedicated agroforestry policy, combined with its potential to contribute to forest restoration goals, has led to a renewed emphasis on promoting the adoption of agroforestry practices among smallholders. However, the views of smallholders residing near forest fringes, who are often approached for adopting agroforestry as part of restoration plans, have not been extensively documented. Using surveys and interviews, we investigate the motivations for engagement and non-engagement in agroforestry for forest restoration among smallholder farmers in Chhota Udepur district, Gujarat. Our logistic regression model indicates that the results of agroforestry from fellow farmers and knowledge about government programs have a strong positive association with agroforestry engagement. In contrast, water availability and trust in government are negatively associated with engagement. Our interviews substantiate these associations and provide additional information about perceived risks. Specifically, water shortages and labour scarcity are significant barriers to smallholders considering the adoption of agroforestry. In all sampled villages, smallholders have emphasised a need for reliable markets for selling agroforestry produce. The mobilisation of sales through existing farmer producer organisations in the region presents an opportunity to increase agroforestry uptake among farmers. Additionally, we find that the impact of the national agroforestry policy has been limited; however, given smallholders’ preference for government programs, this trust can be leveraged to provide better financial and technical support. Overall, our study reinforces the finding that unless livelihoods are secured, engagement in restoration by smallholders is likely to remain limited, ultimately undermining the potential co-benefits of forest restoration to the most vulnerable.