Factors influencing the awareness and adoption of borehole-garden permaculture in Malawi: Lessons for the promotion of sustainable practices
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Date
2021Author
Hinton, Rebekah G. K.
Macleod, Christopher J. A.
Wanangwa, Gift
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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.