Understanding farmer preferences to guide crop improvement: The case of grasspea in Ethiopia

Heaton, Matthew, Perez-Viana, Borja, Emmrich, Peter, Mulat, Belay and Verschoor, Arjan (2025) Understanding farmer preferences to guide crop improvement: The case of grasspea in Ethiopia. Journal of Development Studies. ISSN 0022-0388

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Abstract

Building climate resilience in agriculture may usefully rely on crop improvement informed by social science studies of farmer preferences. Here, we present the case of grasspea in Ethiopia, a resilient and nutritious legume that can survive conditions where many other crops fail. Excessive consumption however carries the risk of an irreversible, crippling disease, this is possible in the future since the weather extremes that climate change is predicted to bring will create the conditions in which grasspea is one of the food sources that will likely see increased consumption. Crucially, farmers are not fully aware of this risk and may therefore not adopt the low-toxin grasspea that crop scientists have developed and that is about to enter the breeding pipeline. In this study we use focus group discussions, key informant interviews and choice experiments to investigate farmer preferences for grasspea improvement. We confirm that farmers do not place much value on reduced toxicity. Instead, they have strong preferences for other improvements, such as resistance to pests. This suggests that improvements that are needed in future but not yet preferred (i.e. reduced toxicity) should be bundled with improvements that farmers already prefer.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding information: This study was supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund.
Uncontrolled Keywords: climate-resilience,crop improvement,choice experiments,ethiopia,grasspea,development,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3303
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Impact Evaluation
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development
University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 29 Jan 2025 13:24
Last Modified: 13 Feb 2025 09:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98329
DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2025.2453519

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