By Sandip Subedi, Benjamin Dent, and Rajendra Adhikari
Photo Credit: Centre for Agriculture Communication and Human Resource Development, Nepal
This Plain Language Summary is published in advance of the paper discussed. Please check back soon for a link to the full paper.
Environmental concerns are increasingly shaping how farmers think about farming practices. However, these concerns do not always lead to actions that reduce environmental harm. This gap between what people intend to do and what actually happens is a major challenge for sustainable agriculture.
Our study explored this gap among mandarin farmers in Nepal. We examined how farmers understand environmental issues and make decisions, and how these decisions relate to real environmental outcomes. Using behavioural perspective, we analysed the role of attitude, confidence and social pressure in shaping farmers’ intentions. We then compared these intentions with actual environmental impacts by measuring the carbon footprint of each farm.
We found that confidence in the ability to adopt environmentally friendly practices, supported by skills, knowledge and resources, was the strongest determinant shaping farmers’ intentions. In contrast, social pressure was found to have a much smaller influence. Education, training and income also played an important role: farmers with more education or higher income relied less on social expectations and made more independent decisions, while training strengthened their capacity to act.
However, farmers’ self-reported behaviour did not always match real-world outcomes. Many farmers who reported environmentally friendly behaviour still had high carbon footprints. This shows that good intentions alone are not sufficient. Practical constraints, such as limited resources and lack of support, can prevent farmers from translating intentions into meaningful environmental change.
These findings suggest that improving environmental outcomes in agriculture requires more than raising awareness. Farmers need skills, resources and support systems that allow them to act on their intentions. Strengthening these conditions can help close the gap between environmental intentions and real-world outcomes.
