Abstract:
At present, soil and water erosion are the most serious environmental problems in
Ethiopia which are affecting the livelihood of the rural farmers and the economy of the
country at all. In order to fight this dangerous soil and water erosion problems, active
participation of the local communities through labor-day contribution is very important.
Chary of this fact, identifying the determinants of farmers’ willingness to pay is an
important issue for policymakers in order to have an effective and sustainable
conservation programs. Therefore, this study was initiated with the objective of accessing
the determinants of households’ willingness to pay for soil and water conservation
practice and to estimate the aggregate Benefit gain from the proposed program in
DebreLibanos woreda. By using double bounded contingent valuation survey with an
open-ended follow up question was conducted on 335 randomly selected rural
households’ from three Kebeles to elicit their preferences for soil and water conservation.
The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and econometric model.
Inferential statistics such as t-test and chi-square test were used to see the significant
mean/percentage difference between willing and non-willing households in terms of the
hypothesized continuous and dummy variables, respectively. In the econometric part,
biprobit model was used to identify the determinants of households’ willingness to pay
for soil and water conservation and to compute the mean willingness to pay. The results
of the biprobit model shows that Sex of households, total livestock holding, Income of
households, credit utilization and frequency of extension contact have a positive and
statistically significant effect on households’ willingness to pay for soil and water
conservation, while dependency ratio, off-farm participation and initial starting bid have
a negative and significant effect on WTP. Hence, to overcoming those negative factors
and encouraging the positive factors can enhance farmers’ willingness to pay for soil and
water conservation practice. The study also show that the mean willingness to pay
estimated from the Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice and open ended formats was
99.51 and 60.062 Labor days per annum, respectively. The respective total aggregate
value of soil and water conservation in the study area varies from 1,120,829.822 person
days per annum (79,353,938.44 ETB) and 736,840.9117 person days per annum
(47,894,659.26 ETB), from double bound Contingent Valuation Method. Therefore,
policy and program intervention designed to address soil and water erosion problems in
the study area have needed to take in to account these characteristic
