Understanding Farmer Preferences to Guide Crop Improvement

The Case of Grasspea in Ethiopia

Bibliographic Data

ID7171025
AuthorsMatt Heaton (Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development, corresponding author), Borja Pérez-Viana (ETH Zurich), Peter Emmrich (Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development), Peter M F Emmrich (0000-0001-5085-9575, John Innes Centre), Belay Mulat (0000-0001-6148-8116, Node Consult), Arjan Verschoor (0000-0002-7770-6832, Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development)
Year2025
Volume61
Issue8
Pages1221-1241
Publication date2025-08-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Development Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0388 • E-ISSN: 1743-9140
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00220388.2025.2453519
OpenAlexW4407080814
LanguageEN
References cited81

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

Agricultural economics · Agriculture · Agroforestry · Business · Consumption (sociology) · Crop · Economics · Focus group · Geography · Psychological resilience · Sociology · Agricultural Innovations and Practices · Agricultural pest management studies · Environmental Science · Genetic and Environmental Crop Studies · Marketing · Psychology

Tools

Open DOI