Abstract
As a result of inability of public extension services to be responsive to the needs of farmers, a new paradigm is emerging. This study was designed to assess farmers’ willingness to pay for extension services and to identify factors influencing the willingness to pay for agricultural information delivery services among the farmers. To achieve the objectives of the study, four PAs were included in the study purposively. A total of 140 households were selected randomly using probability proportional to size technique and interviewed using interview schedules. The proportion of the respondents was increased to 64.2% when the improvement in the quality of the services was stated. Analysis of determinants of the willingness to pay from logit model showed a significant positive relationship between willingness to pay (WTP) and household income, and farm size. Other household characteristics such as age of household head, media exposure, and family size were found to be negative but significantly related to WTP. Key words: Willingness to pay, agricultural extension, commercialization, public service.
Highlights
The importance of agricultural extension in rural development is widely acknowledged, in developing countries like Ethiopia where the majority of the population lives on Agriculture as the main source of livelihood
Information on farmer valuation of current extension benefits, willingness to pay for extension services, types of services they are willing to pay for, and opportunities and obstacles to commercialization of extension is very scanty in the country
Willingness to pay for extension services (WTP) was treated as a dichotomous dependent variable, that is, it took the value 1 if the farmer is willing to pay and 0 otherwise
Summary
The importance of agricultural extension in rural development is widely acknowledged, in developing countries like Ethiopia where the majority of the population lives on Agriculture as the main source of livelihood. Agriculture in this part of the world is very complex and facing a number of serious problems in present era for which it is not easy to find good solutions (Anderson, 2007). Agricultural production in Ethiopia has, for long, remained subsistence with limited market orientation and poor institutional support.
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