Adoption of agroforestry by Medium Agricultural Exploitation (MEAs) in Cameroon: A case study of the Littoral Region

Abstract

Consideration of commercial agricultural owners’ Perceptions of soil degradation, deforestation, and climate change mitigation are crucial for the adoption of agroforestry in large-scale agriculture. Indeed, perceiving agroforestry as a sustainable land management approach can influence adoption decisions. This study aims to analyze the determinants of agroforestry adoption by Medium Agricultural Exploitation (MEAS) in the Littoral Region of Cameroon. We used Heckman’s two-stage model to analyze survey data collected from 310 MAEs. Results indicate that 32 MEAs are planting new trees and actively practicing agroforestry. In the first stage of probit regression, the study results show that the perception of agroforestry as sustainable land management was driven by factors such as farm size and number of employees, off-farm work, inheritance as a source of land, access to credit, social networks, and access to information. In the second stage, the adoption of agroforestry in the MAEs was influenced by the intention to increase farm size in the future, years of experience in agriculture, social network, access to credit, farm size, female sex of the MAE manager, own land or be able to rent land, have their source of seedlings, or have money to buy them. Moreover, if MAE perceives the land to be relatively fertile and has the intention to improve or maintain the fertility of its land in the future, then the likelihood of adopting agroforestry increases. However, when MAEs perceive rainfall to be changing, their land rights to be less secure, and their right to plant trees to be dependent on obtaining permission from the landowner or family members, they are less likely to adopt agroforestry. So, the government should secure land rights and provide a reliable source of agroforestry inputs, such as credit aces, information, land right and seedlings, to ensure that the resource requirements for agroforestry are well fulfilled.