The high cost of seed relative to grain price and the lack of actual or perceived quality difference between available seed products and grain have contributed to the low demand for seeds of improved varieties for legume crops. This study reports the results of agronomic field experiments and incentivized experimental auctions conducted in Ghana to address the following research questions: 1) Are farmers able to perceive quality differences among three types of seed products that can be used as planting material – recycled grain, certified seed, and quality declared seed (QDS)? 2) Given the perceived quality difference, what is farmers’ willingness to pay for these seed products? Results indicate that on average certified seeds performed significantly better than QDS and the recycled grain. Participants were willing to pay 73% and 20% more for certified and QDS over recycled seed, respectively. This was consistent with farmers’ observed seed quality difference obtained through their subjective plot rankings. Consistent with the theory of downward sloping demand curve, there was an inverse relationship between willingness-to-pay a premium price for quality seed and the number of farmers willing to pay the premium price. On the supply side, the average cost of producing one kg of certified seed was estimated to be twice the average cost per kg of producing cowpea grain. The findings of this study have important policy implications on seed dissemination approaches to reach farmers across the spectrum based on their willingness-to-pay for quality seed. It also points to the importance of quality seed in raising cowpea productivity, and the need for lowering the cost of certified seed and QDS to make them accessible to more farmers.
Read
