Willingness to pay for smartphone apps facilitating sustainable crop protection

By providing additional information and simulating results, decision support tools are one of the methods to enhance a farmer’s decision-making process in order to achieve more sustainable practices. With the latest developments in smartphone technology, new possibilities to integrate decision support tools into the daily work process have been emerging and smartphone apps related to crop protection have been developed. However, little is known about the utilization of smartphones by farmers in general, and specifically with regard to crop protection. In order to gather first insights into the factors that could affect the decision of farmers to integrate smartphones and crop protection-related apps in particular, into their work process, we conducted an online survey with 174 technologically experienced German farmers in 2017. We gained insights about the current use of smartphones from the surveyed German farmers, explored which topics farmers perceive as useful in the form of an app for crop protection, and which factors influence the willingness to pay for these apps. Our results show that 93% of the respondents use smartphones for agricultural purposes. Weather forecasts, tools to identify pests, diseases and weeds, as well as related forecasts are perceived as useful by the majority of respondents. Eighty-two percent of the respondents are generally willing to pay for crop protection apps. Using a probit model, we found that the farmer’s age, farm size, knowledge about specific crop protection apps, potential for cost reduction, and potential to reduce negative environmental effects have an influence on the general willingness to pay. Overall, this is the first study to explore factors influencing the willingness to pay for crop protection apps and assess which types of apps are perceived as useful by technologically experienced German farmers.