TY - JOUR A1 - Ullah, Ayat A1 - Saqib, Shahab E. A1 - Kächele, Harald T1 - Determinants of Farmers’ Awareness and Adoption of Extension Recommended Wheat Varieties in the Rainfed Areas of Pakistan JF - Sustainability N2 - Scientific evidence suggests that there is room for eradicating poverty and hunger by increasing food production through the adoption of modern agricultural practices by farmers. This study aimed, first, to explore the relationship between the farmers’ awareness and adoption of improved wheat varieties. Second, it aimed to find the key factors that govern the farmers’ awareness and adoption of extension-recommended innovations in the rainfed cropping system of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Data were collected from 395 respondents. A binary logit model was used to analyze the effect of the farmers’ socioeconomic and farm-specific characteristics on their awareness and adoption of the extension-suggested wheat varieties. Moreover, qualitative data from 40 key informants were collected for in-depth analysis. The results show a strong association between the farmers’ awareness of a technology (improved wheat varieties) and its adoption. The results of the logit model show that their extension contacts, income from agriculture, and access to credit positively affected the farmers’ awareness, whereas their education and household sizes negatively affected their awareness. Moreover, the factors that positively influenced the farmers’ decision to adopt the technology included the extension contact, the confidence in the extension, the risk-bearing attitude, and the credit access, whereas the household size and education negatively affected it. The results of the key informant interviews reveal that the high incidence of poverty, the low soil fertility, the farmers’ inability to make effective decisions, the lack of accurate weather predictability in the rainfed farming system, the lack of government interest, and the asymmetric information in the inputs markets contributed to the farmers’ low levels of awareness and to their poor adoption of improved agricultural technologies. These results indicate that any intervention aimed at the awareness and adoption by farmers of improved technologies, such as new wheat varieties, should recognize the heterogeneity in the farmers’ socioeconomic and farm-specific characteristics. KW - farmers’ awareness KW - technology adoption KW - improved wheat varieties KW - socioeconomic and farm-specific characteristics Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-3496 SN - 2071-1050 VL - 14 IS - 6 PB - MDPI ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ullah, Ayat A1 - Zeb, Alam A1 - Saqib, Shahab E. A1 - Kächele, Harald T1 - Landscape co-management and livelihood sustainability: Lessons learned from the billion trees afforestation project in Pakistan JF - Land Use Policy KW - Billion Trees Afforestation Project KW - Landscape co-management participation KW - Livelihood improvement Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7407 SN - 1873-5754 IS - 115 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ullah, Ayat A1 - Zeb, Alam A1 - Saqib, Shahab E. A1 - Kächele, Harald T1 - Constraints to agroforestry diffusion under the Billion Trees Afforestation Project (BTAP), Pakistan: policy recommendations for 10-BTAP JF - Environmental Science and Pollution Research N2 - Effective agroforestry diffusion under the newly started 10-Billion Trees Afforestation Project (10-BTAP) needs a thorough understanding of the policy and implementation shortfalls of the already completed BTAP. This study examines the factors that affected the diffusion of the agroforestry in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan (HKH) region of Pakistan under BTAP. The data were gathered through in-depth interviews with Village Development Committee (VDC) members, Forest Department (FD) officials, and local farmers. Important factors positively affecting agroforestry diffusion included locations of crop fields on the river sides, community dependency on firewood, and market value of agroforestry timber. The logistic regression model shows that household head’s age, access to information, and area under cropland positively affected household level adoption of agroforestry under BTAP; forest cover was negatively related. In-depth interviews show that key barriers to FD in diffusion of agroforestry included provision of false information by farmers to monitoring teams, non-availability of extension staff, lack of communication among project staff and community, as well as a lack of sufficient budget for activities. Primary barriers to community adoption of agroforestry included no participation of VDCs in planning and monitoring of agroforestry programs, lack of plant need assessments on the part of the project staff, poor quality of plants distributed by FD, farmers’ poor know-how of plantations, lack of trust among community and project staff, as well as the waste of plants by farming community. Thus, this study recommends that policy-makers and project designers should consider these factors when planning agroforestry diffusion under 10-BTAP to improve its success. KW - Agroforestry diffusion; 10-Billion Trees Afforestation Project; Policy and extension; Hindu-Kush Himalayan; Village Development Committees; Planning and monitoring Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-7419 IS - 29 SP - 68757 EP - 68775 PB - Springer Nature ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ullah, Ayat A1 - Zeb, Alam A1 - Saqib, Shahab E. A1 - Kächele, Harald T1 - Constraints to agroforestry diffusion under the Billion Trees Afforestation Project (BTAP), Pakistan: policy recommendations for 10-BTAP JF - Environmental Science and Pollution Research N2 - Abstract Effective agroforestry diffusion under the newly started 10-Billion Trees Afforestation Project (10-BTAP) needs a thorough understanding of the policy and implementation shortfalls of the already completed BTAP. This study examines the factors that affected the diffusion of the agroforestry in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan (HKH) region of Pakistan under BTAP. The data were gathered through in-depth interviews with Village Development Committee (VDC) members, Forest Department (FD) officials, and local farmers. Important factors positively affecting agroforestry diffusion included locations of crop fields on the river sides, community dependency on firewood, and market value of agroforestry timber. The logistic regression model shows that household head’s age, access to information, and area under cropland positively affected household level adoption of agroforestry under BTAP; forest cover was negatively related. In-depth interviews show that key barriers to FD in diffusion of agroforestry included provision of false information by farmers to monitoring teams, non-availability of extension staff, lack of communication among project staff and community, as well as a lack of sufficient budget for activities. Primary barriers to community adoption of agroforestry included no participation of VDCs in planning and monitoring of agroforestry programs, lack of plant need assessments on the part of the project staff, poor quality of plants distributed by FD, farmers’ poor know-how of plantations, lack of trust among community and project staff, as well as the waste of plants by farming community. Thus, this study recommends that policy-makers and project designers should consider these factors when planning agroforestry diffusion under 10-BTAP to improve its success. KW - - KW - Agroforestry diffusion KW - 10-Billion Trees Afforestation Project KW - Policy and extension KW - Hindu-Kush Himalayan KW - Village Development Committees KW - Planning and monitoring KW - Medical and Health Sciences Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:eb1-opus-9271 SN - 0944-1344 SN - 1614-7499 VL - 29 IS - 45 SP - 68757 EP - 68775 PB - Springer Berlin Heidelberg ER -