Factors influencing the awareness and adoption of borehole-garden permaculture in Malawi: Lessons for the promotion of sustainable practices

Abstract

Using wastewater accumulating around rural waterpoints to irrigate community gardens, borehole-garden permaculture (BGP) presents a method of sustainable water management. BGP also presents public health benefits through the removal of stagnant water around boreholes, key Malaria breeding grounds, and through providing year-round food to supplement diets. By analysing a dataset of over 100,000 cases, this research examines the awareness and adoption of BGP across Malawi. Generalised linear models identified significant variables influencing BGP awareness and uptake revealing that socioeconomic, biophysical and waterpoint-specific variables influenced both the awareness and adoption of BGP. BGP had low uptake in Malawi with only 2.4% of communities surveyed practising BGP while 43.0% of communities were aware of BGP. Communities in areas with unreliable rainfall and high malaria susceptibility had low BGP awareness despite BGP being particularly beneficial to these communities.