Farmers willingness-to-pay for eco-friendly agricultural waste management in Ethiopia: A contingent valuation

Abstract The abundance of agricultural waste (AW) production following rapid population growth and resource constraints has created an urgent need for sustainable agricultural waste management (AWM) for the welfare of rural society. In Ethiopia, open burning of biomass is common practice after harvest and in household cooking, and smoke and improperly discarded AW are also major problems. However, compared with municipal waste management, AWM is poorly addressed. In this study, we seek to assess the current AWM status, farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP), and the factors affecting WTP for eco-friendly AWM in the Mirab Gojjam, Amhara region of Ethiopia, which has not been studied previously. Data were collected through a contingent valuation survey of 353 randomly selected farmers in early spring 2018 (February–April). We offered labour days and money as a payment vehicle. The mean annual WTP is 6.84 labour days (eq 273.50 Birr) and 8.20 Birr in monetary value, respectively. The strongly significant WTP factors are age, education, family size, source of income, land, livestock, and perception. The Tobit results indicate that the bid value in labour days, environmental perception, government subsidy, farm shortage, economic conditions, living in harmony with nature, and knowledge of AW strongly influenced the degree of farmers’ amount to pay. The results are thus useful for understanding farmers’ attitudes towards rural environment quality and WTP for eco-friendly AWM, as well as the need for private and public instruments in AW for developing policies and to turn waste into a resource.