Understanding environmental attitudes influencing smallholder farmland restoration in Malawi: an attitude-behavior perspective

Restoring agricultural landscapes is increasingly called for in Malawi to transform degraded smallholder landscapes into nature-based productive food systems. In addition to structural conditions and access to resources, sustained restoration efforts are contingent upon farmers’ decision-making processes, which are grounded in their values, beliefs, and attitudes. We explore smallholder farmers’ environmental attitudes and perceptions of farmland degradation in relation to their engagement with extension services and projects. An attempt is made to capture environmental attitudes by adapting the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) index to the local knowledge system. The study was conducted in Kasungu district, Malawi based on the household survey ( n = 181) and focus group discussions. The results show that 90% of respondents perceived farmland degradation as a threat to smallholder agricultural production. However, variations in household livelihood capitals were not necessarily linked to respondents' perceptions of farmland degradation or environmental attitudes, except for social capital. The findings further show that smallholders’ perceptions and attitudes may not translate directly into land restoration behavior. For instance, 56% stated that they do not practice water conservation on their farmland. The study’s findings underscore the need for context-specific approaches to prioritize farmland restoration and highlight the complex linkages among structural conditions, smallholder perceptions of degradation, environmental attitudes, and engagement in landscape restoration efforts. At the same time, the ambiguous findings from applying the contextualized NEP index call for ‘epistemic humility’ when using foreign research instruments to capture aspects of local knowledge systems.