Perceptions of and Willingness to Pay for Hexanal Technology Among Smallholder Banana Farmers in Meru County, Kenya

Abstract

About 40-50% of horticultural produce meant for consumption is lost along the value chain in Sub-Saharan Africa due to post-harvest losses. This greatly reduces food availability and leads to increased food prices thereby increasing food insecurity in Africa. Promotion of technologies to reduce these post-harvest losses is therefore necessary in improving food security. Hexanal technology, which is an organic compound, has been identified as an important intervention as it is able to prolong shelf life of perishable farm produce such as bananas thereby providing farmers with more time to access markets and/or get better prices. In order to inform the commercialization decisions of the technology, it is important that farmers’ perceptions and willingness to pay (WTP) for the technology are studied. This thesis assessed farmers’ perceptions of and their willingness to pay for Hexanal technology to prolong fruits’ shelf life among banana farmers in Meru County. In addition, the study also assessed the socioeconomic and other factors conditioning farmers’ perceptions and their willingness to pay for the Hexanal technology. Methodologically, data used for analysis was generated from a sample of 130 households from South Imenti Sub-county, Meru County. The sample was selected using purposive and systematic random sampling from a sampling frame obtained from banana farmer groups in the study area. Data was obtained through face-to-face interviews with the household heads or their spouses using semi-structured questionnaires. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted in order to reduce the many and correlated variables to distinct perceptions while the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was employed to measure the WTP. Data was analyzed separately for farmers who were ‘aware’ and ‘not aware’ of the technology. From the PCA three components were extracted namely; ‘effectiveness’ which described the potential for Hexanal to reduce post-harvest losses as well as increasing incomes,

‘acceptability’ which explained social acceptance of the technology to the farmers and ‘environmental Safety’ of the technology. Results indicate that both groups of farmers had positive perceptions on the Hexanal technology and its application. Farmers aware of the technology perceived it to be able to reduce post- harvest losses leading to increased incomes. They also noted that the technology was socially acceptable. However, farmers not aware of the technology perceived Hexanal as difficult to use as they emphasized that they would require the assistance of an extension officer. Perception scores were regressed against explanatory variables using Ordinary Least Squares between the sub-samples. Perceptions scores between the sub-samples were influenced by different sets of variables such as sex of household head, distance to input shop, age and annual household income among others. Results from the CVM approach show that farmers were willing to pay to use the Hexanal technology, the mean WTP value per 0.25L of Hexanal being Ksh 466.67 for farmers aware of the technology and Ksh.331.86 for farmers not aware of the technology. This is a clear indication that access to information on the use and benefits of Hexanal technology increases the amounts households are willing to pay for it in order to reduce their post-harvest losses. Results indicate that a higher initial bid, farmers with larger land size as well as farmers with positive perceptions on social acceptability of Hexanal had a higher WTP for Hexanal. The major key policy implication from the study is that, it is important that stakeholders invest more in dissemination of information on the technology to increase its awareness especially among farmers currently not aware of the technology. This will enhance positive perceptions about Hexanal that will increase its adoption. Future studies should focus on the cost benefit analysis of adopting Hexanal.