Farmers’ willingness to pay towards the sustainability of plant clinics: evidence from Bangladesh, Rwanda and Zambia

Abstract

Fee-based agricultural extension programmes have been proposed in response to the constraints of funding public extension services. This has piqued researchers' interest in determining farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for extension services in recent decades. The current study examines farmers' WTP to ensure the sustainability of plant clinics. Smallholder farmers in over 30 countries benefit from this demand-driven extension method, which delivers plant health diagnostic and consulting services. External funders are now paying the plant clinic operations, which raises worries about their long-term viability if the funding stops. We used survey data from 602, 637, and 837 households in Bangladesh, Rwanda, and Zambia. We discovered that roughly 64% of the sample farmers were willing to pay an amount sufficient to cover the operational costs of an established plant clinic using the iterative bidding technique of eliciting WTP. Farmers in Bangladesh, Rwanda, and Zambia were willing to spend an average of 0.27USD, 0.85USD, and 2.25USD per visit to plant clinics. According to our findings, farmers appear to value the plant clinic extension method and are eager to contribute to its long-term viability. Therefore, piloting fee-paying plant clinic services to determine farmers' actual WTP and preferred payment options would be beneficial.

Keywords

• plant clinics
• willingness-to-pay
• agricultural extension
• smallholder farmers
• sustainability
• adoption