Understanding the potential of sustainability turn in farming: review of sociotechnical adoption factors of agri-environmental cropping practices

Abstract

While farming practices such as intercropping, cover cropping, and green manuring are promoted as contributors to environment-friendly agriculture by balancing agricultural production with environmental sustainability, their uptake by farmers has still been limited. This paper provides a holistic global view of the adoption factors of such agri-environmental cropping practices based on a systematic literature review of 53 international peer-reviewed articles. Qualitative analysis of the reviewed studies shows that adoption factors explored by researchers can be categorized along nine thematic groups (sociodemographic characteristics, socioeconomic/financial conditions, environmental conditions, tangible assets and inventory, pre-existing farm practices, agrotechnical aspects of the practice, public support instruments, information and knowledge resources, community dynamics) and two transversal dimensions (generic and practice-specific attitudes), with an additional differentiation of micro- and macro-levels within the former. While many individual factors across the various groups and dimensions are highly context sensitive in terms of their impact on practice adoption, the analysis also identifies a set of factors that demonstrate common trends across the studies. The offered holistic conceptualization and analysis of the adoption factors of the reviewed set of practices contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the broader potential impact pathways in the farmer reorientation toward sustainable crop production.