Farmers' preferences for crop variety traits: Lessons for on-farm conservation and technology adoption

Sinafikeh Asrat, Mahmud Yesuf, Fredrik Carlsson and Edilegnaw Wale

Ecological Economics, 2010, vol. 69, issue 12, 2394-2401

Abstract: Although in-situ conservation is increasingly considered an efficient way of conserving plant genetic resources, little is known about the incentives and constraints that govern conservation decisions among small farm holders in developing countries. Using a choice experiment approach, we investigated Ethiopian farmers' crop variety preferences, estimated the mean willingness to pay for each crop variety attribute, and identified household-specific and institutional factors that governed the preferences. We found that environmental adaptability and yield stability are important attributes for farmers' choice of crop varieties. Farmers are willing to forego some extra income or yield to obtain a more stable and environmentally adaptable crop variety. Among other things, household resource endowments (particularly land holdings and livestock ownership), years of farming experience, and contact with extension services are the major factors causing household heterogeneity of crop variety preferences. Based on our experimental results, we derived important policy implications for on-farm conservation, breeding priority setting, and improved variety adoption in Ethiopia.

Keywords: Crop; biodiversity; Choice; experiment; Crop; variety; Random; parameter; logit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (60)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(10)00272-7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Farmers' Preferences for Crop Variety Traits: Lessons for On-Farm Conservation and Technology Adoption (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:69:y:2010:i:12:p:2394-2401

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().