Beyond motivations: A framework unraveling the systemic barriers to organic farming adoption in northern Senegal

Abstract

Developing organic farming is among the most popular policy options for protecting soil, water, and biodiversity while improving incomes for agricultural producers around the World. Despite its growing success, the adoption as well as the outcomes of organic agriculture remain particularly low in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we propose a multidimensional framework based on farmers' perceived motivations to evaluate the factors enabling or hindering the adoption of organic agriculture, including attitude (the subjective evaluation of a behaviour), ability (the cognitive and technical capacity to perform a behaviour), opportunity (the perceived social, economic, and ecological benefits of a behaviour), and legitimacy (formal and informal values and norms supporting a behaviour). We tested the framework on a sample of around 300 organic and conventional small-scale farmers in a horticultural area in northern Senegal. We found that despite a highly positive attitude towards organic practices among both conventional and organic farmers, adoption remains extremely low, and many have abandoned them. Low perceived ability and a lack of opportunities appeared to be determinant drivers, including difficulties accessing available organic input, knowledge, and tools and lack of both a market and institutional support. Our results suggest that greater emphasis should be placed on creating favourable conditions at the food system level based on broad agroecological principles. This can be achieved, for example, by supporting grassroots farmer organizations, enacting appropriate environmental legislation, securing organic farmers’ productive resources, and enhancing participatory organic certification and alternative food networks. Such efforts are likely to have a more significant impact than training and promotion targeting farmers who are already convinced.