Exploring farmers’ willingness to pay for small-scale maize shelling machines in Tanzania

Agricultural intensification is being promoted among African smallholders to feed the growing population. When existing land has to be more intensively cultivated, mechanization should be adopted to complement the higher labour demand to accomplish increased activities. Moreover, agricultural operations are arduous by their nature and mechanization is necessary to reduce the drudgery. Drudgery has increasingly become important in explaining the opportunity cost of labour, particularly for the youth, who can otherwise be engaged in less laborious employment.

This poster presents the findings of a study that explored Tanzanian smallholder farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for small-scale maize shelling machines and identified factors affecting willingness to pay among farmers.

The results showed that three different models can be adopted to enhance the use of machines for maize shelling: the rental service model (RSM) whereby farmers get shelling services from commercial service providers, the group ownership model (GOM) whereby farmers buy and use the shelling machines in a group, and the private ownership model (POM) whereby farmers buy the machines privately.

More than 95% of the farmers were willing to pay the existing market rate for rental services. The WTP for the other two models varied by the machine type. The percentage of farmers who were willing to pay the market rate was bigger for the electric machine than the diesel machine in both GOP and POM cases which implies that the electric machine are economically feasibility for more farmers than its counterpart. Moreover, as expected, the percentage of farmers who were willing to pay the market rate in the case of POM was substantially lower than in the case of GOM for both machine types.

This poster was presented at the Africa RISING ESA project review and planning meeting held in Lilongwe, Malawi, on 3–5 October 2018.