Practice-specific adoption of sustainable agricultural practices among smallholder rice farmers in Indonesia

Smallholder transitions toward sustainable agriculture rarely proceed as a uniform package of practices. Current empirical research often generalises farmer action by relying on composite adoption scores, failing to capture variation in how and why individual practices are adopted. This study examines practice-specific adoption of sustainable agricultural practices (SAP) among 357 rice farmers in Malang Regency, East Java, Indonesia. Practice-specific adoption refers to the adoption of individual SAP components rather than the use of an aggregate adoption index. Six indicators are analysed, namely integrated pest management, organic weed management, tillage, organic nutrient management, crop rotation, and cover cropping. The analysis shows that land ownership (OR = 1.81) and access to extension services (OR = 1.51) were positively associated with higher aggregate SAP adoption. However, practice-specific models revealed heterogeneous associations: extension support was associated with higher odds of reduced tillage (OR = 2.25) but lower odds of organic weed management (OR = 0.57), while off-farm employment was associated with higher odds of IPM (OR = 7.93) but lower odds of crop rotation (OR = 0.42). Latent class analysis identified four adoption typologies: integrated management adopters (18.21%), pest–nutrient management adopters (12.04%), limited-adoption farmers (39.44%), and rotation–tillage adopters (30.31%). The study offers a new empirical lens to understand sustainability uptake in smallholder settings and supports a more context-sensitive design of agricultural interventions.