To understand farmers' access to and knowledge of quality seeds in Nicaragua, I surveyed 242 bean producing households in the northwestern region of Nicaragua. The majority of farmers stated that they had heard of or had knowledge of certified seed, which is considered the highest quality seed potentially available to farmers. Despite this knowledge of higher quality seeds, 56% of households stated they had never purchased seed. In this study, I evaluate two non-hypothetical preference elicitation methods to estimate farmers' willingness to pay for quality seeds: a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction and a Real Choice Experiment (RCE). The BDM auction and RCE were conducted after farmers examined the experimental plots on which three types of quality bean seeds of the same variety were planted—certified seeds, quality declared seed, and recycled grain. These were blind experiments and farmers were unaware of the quality types beyond what they observed in the experimental plots. The results of the BDM auction show that farmers are willing to pay a premium of C$5/lb (US$0.16/lb) for the plot planted with their highest rated seed compared to the plot planted with lowest rated seed. In the RCE, the average premium farmers are willing to pay for the highest rated seed was C$30/lb (US$1 /lb). The average premium farmers were willing to pay for the lowest rated seed was C$-9.16/lb (US$-0.31/lb) and was statistically different from C$0, which is not consistent with the BDM results. Potential reasons for the discrepancies in the results of the two methods are discussed.
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