Evaluation of Farmers’ Willingness to Pay (WTP) for Sesame Seed Driller Machine Rental Service in Kafta-Humera District, Western Tigray, Ethiopia

Abstract

The use of row planter in Ethiopia for sesame production is almost at the infant stage, and most seeds were typically sown through manual broadcasting as the tariff of imported agricultural machinery (row planter) is high. This shows that poor and small-scale farmers are unable to purchase row planter/sesame seed driller machine/ as its cost is expensive and their land is small. Hence, this study has assessed farmers' willingness to pay to rent sesame seed driller machine service by conducting a survey of 124 farmers in Kafta-humera district, western Tigray, Ethiopia. A survey questionnaire related to CVM was designed and face-to-face interviews were made to collect the data. The descriptive result showed that 85.48% of the farmers were willing to rent the Sesame seed driller machine with a mean of ETB 911.37 per hectare. The Probit regression results confirm that the educational level, access to extension service, the income of the household, and access to credit were the factors that affecting the farmers’ level of willingness to pay positively. However, the cultivable land size was negatively influencing willingness to rent sesame seed driller machine by the farmers. Regarding the perception of farmers, majority of the respondents were perceived positively particularly with the statements of “sesame seed driller machine decreases weed occurrence and makes easy to control weed, increases sesame grain yield and it makes farmers financially profitable". However, they perceived negatively on that it drills a higher seed rate and missed plant to some extent. The study, therefore, recommends encouraging well educated and better off people to engage in sesame farming, overhauling agricultural extension services. Moreover, it is suggested that investors, cooperatives or private companies should introduce sesame seed driller machine not only for themselves but also to rent service at a fair price.