Abstract
This study assessed crop farmers’ willingness to pay for AESs and identified factors influencing their willingness to pay for AESs. Data were collected from 292 randomly selected crop farmers’ households between December 2017 and February 2018 using a questionnaire through face-to-face interviews. Data were analyzed using frequency counts, percentages and Tobit regression model. The study found that 92% of the respondents are willing to pay for AESs. It was also found that farmer’s age, education attainment, farming experience, distance from farm to the nearest important road, income (both farm and nonfarm) and attitude towards AESs are significant determinants of farmers willingness to pay for AESs. The study recommends that these variables be given proper policy consideration by the government and other stakeholders in the design and the implementation of a workable fashion of privatizing extension services for the expected impact of improving extension services and farmers’ productivity hence improved quality of life. Key words: Extension services, willingness to pay, crop farmers, Mpwapwa, Mvomero
Highlights
The importance of Agricultural Extension Services (AESs) in agricultural and rural development is widely acknowledged, in a developing country like Tanzania. Mutimba (2014) opined that agricultural extension is a vehicle for modernizing agriculture in many sub-Saharan African countries
This is continuous variable taking values ranging from 0 to 1 Age of respondent in years Sex of respondent. 1 if respondent is male, 0 otherwise Was a dummy variable indicating whether a respondent had attended formal education or not (1 if attended formal education, 0 otherwise) Number of individuals in the household Total household land in hectares own by the household Number of years the household has been engaged in crop production Distance in kilometers from farm to nearest important road Total annual net income of household in Tanzanian shillings Degree of commercialization of crop enterprise - proportion of crops sold Attitude towards AESs
Francis et al (2010) indicated that in Uganda, 35.0 and 40.0% were willing to pay extension services related to crops and animal husbandry respectively. These findings show that the willingness to pay for AESs was higher for crop farmers in Tanzania compared to their fellow counterparts in these other countries
Summary
The importance of Agricultural Extension Services (AESs) in agricultural and rural development is widely acknowledged, in a developing country like Tanzania. Mutimba (2014) opined that agricultural extension is a vehicle for modernizing agriculture in many sub-Saharan African countries. The importance of Agricultural Extension Services (AESs) in agricultural and rural development is widely acknowledged, in a developing country like Tanzania. Mutimba (2014) opined that agricultural extension is a vehicle for modernizing agriculture in many sub-Saharan African countries. The author adds that it is that discipline of agriculture charged with the responsibility of, as the late 1970 Noble laureate, Norman Borlaug said,. AES provides farmers with the agricultural information in the form of knowledge and skills to build their capacities and influence their attitude so as to enable them take effective farm management decisions regarding their daily agricultural practices (Swanson and Rajalahti, 2010; URT, 2013).
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