Potential influence of gender on farmer willingness to pay for grafting technology for sustainable control of tomato bacterial wilt disease in selected districts of Uganda

Abstract

Tomato plays a great role in income generation for many small holder farmers in Uganda, but it is hampered by Bacterial Wilt Disease (BWD). Because BWD is soil-borne, adoption of grafted seedlings that are resistant to BWD is key to protect tomato incomes. Farm-level adoption of these grafted seedlings will to a large extent depend on farmer perceptions about BWD, in addition to socio-economic factors such as gender of farmer. Specifically, there exists a gender gap in adoption of commercialized agricultural technologies, a discrepancy that may be a result of gender-specific factors that influence farmer’s affordability of commercial technologies. Hence, farm-level adoption of grafted tomato seedlings would likely not only depend on farmer perceptions about BWD but also on gender of farmer. This study aimed at estimating the unobserved prices both male and female tomato farmers were willing to pay for grafted tomato seedlings to control BWD, as a first effort to provide evidence of presence of market for the technology. Using a dichotomous choice experiment, WTP responses were elicited from a random sample of 297 tomato farmers in 5 districts of Uganda.Prices farmers were willing to pay and potential adoption determinants were estimated in double-bounded models. Results reveal that gender of a farmers could potentially influence adoption of grafted seedlings. For instance, unconditional gender-disaggregated models suggested that female farmers were willing to pay a price 8% higher for EGTS than male farmers. Further analysis of the conditional gender-disaggregated models indicated that adoption of grafted tomato seedlings by female farmers would likely be influenced by institutional factors such as access to market, credit and land. On the other hand, perception factors such as knowledge about BWD and concern about pesticide-use risks would significantly influence adoption by male farmers. However, all farmers were willing to pay a premium of 27% over the average prevailing tomato seeds price (UGX 150,000) for grafted tomato seedlings that plant a quarter an acre of land. This indicated a high market potential for the grafted tomato seedlings. Thus, commercial nurseries that raise grafted tomato seedlings may need to engage commercialization strategies that mainstream gender constraits in access to markets in order to optimize sales of make particular effort to increase farmer access to different agricultural markets. They may also need to devise programs that improve farmer perceptions about BWD if they are to reach this estimated potential market-base.