Willingness to pay for adopting conservation tillage technologies in wheat cultivation: policy options for small-scale farmers

Abstract

Traditional farming involves intensive tillage causing soil degradation and erosion. On the contrary, conservation tillage technologies are expensive to purchase for small-scale farmers. However, the adoption of these technologies reduces soil tillage costs which lead to reduced overall production costs. In this milieu, this study assessed the willingness to pay (WTP) for adopting conservation tillage technologies in terms of individual and cooperative payment systems using the primary data collected from 320 wheat farmers in Bangladesh. The contingency valuation method (CVM) was followed to estimate their WTP, and factors affecting WTP were identified through the logistic regression model. The results elicited farmers perceived that conservation tillage technologies would facilitate by reducing costs, timely land preparation, seed sowing and planting, appropriate positioning of seed and fertilizers, and higher soil moisture. Nevertheless, most of the farmers wanted to adopt conservation tillage technologies, while about 79% would like to pay for it. Although farmers' average WTP for individual purchases was higher, most were interested in the cooperative systems for adopting conservation tillage machines. Farmers' WTP for both individual and cooperative purchases was influenced by location of wheat production, farming experience, and demonstration plots. Additionally, individual payment system was affected by the amount of wheatland and training while credit affected the cooperative purchase system. Besides, the farmers would like to expand their wheat farms by approximately 73.33% after adopting conservation tillage technologies. The refusal to pay for conservation tillage technologies was mostly due to low-quality spare parts, lack of technical understanding, and unawareness of the technology. This study suggests that providing training among farmers and operators, credit support, and making machines and spare parts available in the nearest markets would support adopting conservation technologies. Besides, cooperative-based payment system should be formed to help small-scale farmers adopt conservation tillage techniques for sustainable agriculture in an environment-friendly way.