Driving climate resilience: citizen attitudes toward agroforestry and their policy implications in the UK

Agroforestry provides essential ecosystem services while enhancing climate resilience and biodiversity in rural landscapes. Despite a growing body of research on farmers’ adoption of agroforestry, much less is known about citizens’ attitudes and priorities. Citizen disapproval of agroforestry practices or policies may undermine the legitimacy of these initiatives and impede their long-term implementation. This risk is particularly relevant in countries where agroforestry is being promoted as a national policy priority, such as the UK. We surveyed 1509 UK citizens to examine their attitudes toward agroforestry, explore factors influencing these attitudes, and study how these factors operate across distinct segments of the sample. Overall, participants expressed neutral to positive attitudes toward agroforestry. Benefits associated with climate resilience (wildlife habitat creation, greenhouse gas capture, and flood control) were rated most highly. Negative socio-economic consequences (delayed benefit realization, higher input requirements, and potential stakeholder conflicts) were identified as representing the greatest risks. Structural equation modeling validated a novel hybrid model explaining participants’ attitudes toward agroforestry, highlighting three primary drivers: evoked affect, perceived benefits, and the perceived importance of environmental conservation in farming. Latent class analysis identified three distinct citizen groups. The negative impact of perceived risk associated with agroforestry on attitudes was greatest among cautious conservation-oriented citizens. The positive impact of perceived threat to the rural environment exceeded the influence of perceived importance of environmental conservation in farming among citizens sensitive to threats to the rural environment. Among countryside-engaged eco-productive citizens, perceived importance of both environmental conservation and food productivity as well as attachment to the countryside emerged as strong positive predictors of acceptance. Our results provide evidence for adopting a holistic approach that accounts for diverse citizen preferences when promoting agroforestry across UK regions, and highlight the importance of addressing multiple ecosystem services at the landscape level in agroforestry policies.