Smallholder farmers’ intention to adopt Climate-Smart Agricultural (CAS) practices: Insights into the socio-psychological dimensions of their pro-environmental behaviours

Although various Climate-Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices are promoted to safeguard agricultural production and food security in the Global South, their adoption remains limited. This study conducted a cross-sectional survey using a semi-structured questionnaire between March and April in 2023, with a sample of 231 smallholder farmers covering 5 villages (Purbo Karpara, Rampasa, Monohor Pur, Boro Isubpur, and Char Alapur) in Haor wetlands of Bangladesh. Then, this study examined smallholder farmers’ adoption intention of floating farming practice in Haor wetlands of Bangladesh based on an extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model. The result demonstrated moderate predictive power of the proposed model, where farmers’ attitude, subjective norm, knowledge of floating farming practice, perceived behavioural control, and institutional accessibility jointly explained 11.50% of the total variance in adoption intention, with subjective norm and perceived behavioural control showing significant impact on smallholder farmers’ adoption intention. However, key barriers reported by smallholder farmers included unavailability of resources, limited access to modern farming practices, input and credit unavailability, insufficient access to training, and limited access to market system. These findings indicated that improving smallholder farmers’ access to extension services and credit facilities, raising awareness, providing training, and guaranteeing access to accurate and timely climate information and early warning systems could significantly improve their adaptive capacity. This study contributes to socio-psychological understanding of smallholder farmers’ pro-environmental behaviour and emphasises the need for context-specific interventions to support sustainable livelihoods and resilient agri-food systems in climate-vulnerable regions.