A contingent valuation approach to estimating willingness to pay for fish solar drying technology: case of western shore of lake Malawi

Abstract

For many years, open sun drying(OSD)has been the common way ofpreservingfish among the fishing households inMalawi. The mainlimitations of this technique have been increased fish quality deterioration and microbial contamination. Two fish solar dryers(FSD) wereconstructedunder the SEEDFISH projectalong theWestern Shore of Lake Malawi(WSLM)as a way of minimizing the effects of usingOSD and providea better way of drying fishin the area.The FSDthough adopted,the fishing households have been seeking alternativesfor itssustenance.This study estimatesthe households’ willingness to pay (WTP) and theirinfluencing factors while using contingent valuation (CV)approaches. A wide range of data collection methods(exploratory surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews,andfield observations)wasemployed.Atotalof200 fishing households were randomly interviewed. The results showed that144(72.4%)of the respondentswere willing to paybecause theFSDwasseen asa way of mitigating the climate changeimpact, improvinglivelihoods,and reducingpost-harvest losses. The mean annual aggregate WTP amount was estimated at MK3,648,750 (US$4,865).Those households(27.6%) not willing to pay argued that theyhada low level of incomewhile others could not see any value of the FSD. The regression coefficients ofage and gender of household head (GHH)were negative (β =-6.02 and Waldof5.34, β = -6.92, Wald of 2.01) and significant (p<0.05)suggesting that young people were more WTP than their counterpart. Males also coded as 0 were more willing to pay than females. On the other hand,household literacy level (HLL),household involved in fish processing (HIVFP), household social trust (HST), household institutional trust (HIT), household level of income (HLI), household experienced fish post-harvest losses (HEFPL),household access to extension services (HAE) and household social network(HSN) were positive (β = 2.97, Wald of 7.11,β = 6.37 and Wald of 5.41,β = 3.03 and Wald of 6,β = 11.2, Wald 9.02, β = 2.42, Wald of 8, β = 0.93, Wald of 4,81 and β = 2.50, Wald 2.10) and significant (p<0.05) suggesting that those HIVFP, had high HLL, HLI, HST, HIT, HSNand HEFPL were more willing to pay than their counterpart.Thesefindings provide comprehensive baseline datafor local government and communities in the development of more effective and holistic approaches to improving communities’ climate change resilience