Assessment of Farmers’ Perceptions of and Willingness to Pay for Aflasafe Ke01, a Biological Control for Aflatoxins in Kenya
Abstract
Aflatoxin contamination of key staples compromises quality of food products, trade and health
of consumers whereas acute exposure can be fatal. Aflasafe KE01 is a promising biological
control product in the management of aflatoxin contamination of key staples reducing levels
of the toxin by up to 80 per cent in a single application. The biological product is made up of
four natural indigenous strains of Aspergillus flavus that are atoxigenic. Being a novel
biological pesticide, farmers’ perceptions and willingness to pay (WTP) need to be understood
to facilitate commercialization. The objective of this study was to assess the farmers’
perceptions of and willingness to pay for Aflasafe KE01 as a biological control product in the
management of aflatoxin contamination of key staples in Kenya. Further, the study assessed
the potential influence of different factors on the WTP estimates. A sample of 480 households
from four Counties identified as aflatoxin hotspots was randomly selected and interviewed
through household survey questionnaires. Principal component analysis was used to reduce the
farmers’ perceptions to more simplified components. The contingent valuation method (CVM)
was employed to estimate the amount of money farmers were willing to pay while the influence
of different factors on farmers’ WTP were assessed using the ordinary least squares regression
method. Results show that famers’ perceptions can be grouped into a number of principal
components namely; education and promotion need, effectiveness of the bio-pesticide, fear of
unknown, maize disease a serious problem, bio-pesticide acceptability, aflatoxin is a serious
problem and environmental safety. For effective adoption to occur, farmer will have to be
sensitized fully to boost their confidence on the use of Aflasafe KE01. Using CVM the mean
WTP value per kilogram of Aflasafe KE01 was Kshs 113 (US$1.33) for farmers in Tana River
County, Kshs 152 (US$1.79) for Lower Eastern trial farmers and Kshs 147 (US$1.73) for
Lower Eastern non-trial farmers (US$ ≡ Kshs 85)1. The amounts the households were willing
1 The conversion rate used at the time of data collection was one dollar to Ksh 85.
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to pay were higher than the Kshs 130, the price of a similar product in Nigeria except for
households in Tana River County. This clearly shows that households in Kenya are willing to
pay more for Aflasafe KE01 to control aflatoxin contamination in maize. From the econometric
findings, the factors that were found to positively influence farmers’ WTP were utilization of
crop extension services, credit utilization, awareness of bio-pesticide, contract agreement,
household income, gender, age, being from Bura sub-county and initial bid amount. Those that
were found to negatively influence WTP were household size, distance to market, perceptions
of product effectiveness, and years of practice of the main livelihood activity. Based on the
findings, there is need for increased extension services to educate and promote Aflasafe use.
The results also shows that if farmers could access credit from the lending organizations either
in the form of liquid cash or farm inputs, it would help increase their adoption rate for the biopesticide
and also of other agricultural innovations. As distance to market was found to
influence negatively the WTP, the stakeholders should thus target developing distribution
networks that favor accessibility by end users situated away from urban centers.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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