Farmer’s knowledge, attitude, and practice on water stewardship as a water management tool: a case study of Kaporo smallholder farmers association in Karonga, Malawi

Abstract

The limitation in application of water stewardship as a water management tool by farmers under Kaporo Smallholder Farmers Association (KASFA) in Karonga district, Northern Malawi was mainly due to knowledge gaps, attitudes, and practices of farmers. As such the study of farmers’ knowledge, attitude, and practice on water stewardship as a water management tool was conducted to assess farmers’ knowledge, attitude, and practices on water stewardship as a water management tool for farmers under KASFA. Data was collected from farmers under the Kaporo Smallholder Farmers Association (KASFA). The study used qualitative and quantitative data from 302 KASFA farmers on which 60 farmers who were the only irrigation farmers within KASFA were purposively selected and surveyed on irrigation issues and 242 farmers were randomly sampled and surveyed on water stewardship. Collected data were analyzed using IBM SPSS (Version 20). The results indicated farmers’ knowledge and the variables of water stewardship such as training attendance and water quality were highly associated with a significance of p < 0.05. Contrary, no significant association was found between knowledge and other variables such as gender, marital status, irrigation practice and land size (p > 0.05). The results on farmers’ practice showed that most farmers have no water right as the association has no water abstraction license. This was mostly due to farmers’ limited knowledge and unawareness of water use statutory requirements which contributed to the poor application of water stewardship as a water management tool. These results can enhance the application of water stewardship as a water management tool by irrigation farmers. The study recommends the use of multidisciplinary approach in farmer’s water stewardship sensitizations. Farmers should form or join water management groups through a ripple effect approach, sustainable water management and water resource use awareness.