The adoption of agroforestry practices: the determinants and constraints among smallholder farmers in Juba County, South Sudan

Agroforestry (AF) is an integrated farming system that offers both tangible and intangible benefits. In many developing countries like South Sudan, where resources for agricultural development are limited, farmers still tend to increase their motivation to incorporate woody perennials into agroforestry practices. However, several studies have shown that socioeconomic and institutional factors play crucial roles in farmers' decision-making processes regarding agroforestry adoption. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the key factors influencing farmers' adoption decisions in Rajaf Payam, Juba County, South Sudan, by applying probit and multivariate probit regression analyses. Since different agroforestry practices may have varying impacts on farmers’ adoption decisions, a multivariate probit approach ensures that these practices are analyzed simultaneously, compared to using a simple probit model applied to a binary dummy variable of each agroforestry practice separately. The data were collected from 348 randomly selected households using structured questionnaires administered to household heads. Key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) were also conducted. The main findings revealed that gender, access to credit, access to quality and improved seeds, household size, distance to market, mode of farmland acquisition, extension contact, livestock ownership, and parcel size significantly affected agroforestry adoption. The study also found that common agroforestry practices included scattered trees on croplands (44.60%), homegardens (22.44%), and boundary planting (16.34%). These practices mainly involved fruit tree species such as Mangifera indica (26.9%), Citrus sinensis (15.8%), Carica papaya (10.1%), and Azadirachta indica (9.2%), which were primarily used for food provision (24.4%), shade (7.2%), and protective/windbreak purposes (6.6%). Moreover, the results indicated that the major constraints hindering adoption were a lack of low-cost, quality inputs (ranked 1st), high rates of insecurity (ranked 2nd), a lack of capital (ranked 3rd), and insufficient labour (ranked 4th). Overall, to scale up and sustainably increase adoption rates, targeted efforts to promote agroforestry interventions should be prioritized, including mobilizing and allocating more resources to these practices.