Willingness to pay for ecosystem services provided by irrigated agriculture in Northeast Thailand

• Main Authors: Somsak Vivithkeyoonvong, Damien Jourdain
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2017-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services & Management
• Subjects: Choice experiment; ecosystem services; heterogeneity; irrigated agriculture; latent class model
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21513732.2016.1242093

In addition to producing food products, irrigated agroecosystems provide important services that contribute to societal well-being but are often not taken into account by policy-makers. This paper investigates how the public in Northeast Thailand values these services. A choice experiment approach was developed to elicit the implicit prices of these services. We also investigate heterogeneity of respondents using a latent class (LC) approach. The results indicated that individuals are willing to pay for irrigated agricultural services that provide drought mitigation, preserves water quality and environment, and rural landscapes (RL). However, we observed important willingness-to-pay (WTP) heterogeneity related to gender, age, and income. Our results suggest that a society’s demand for the nonmarket services of irrigated agriculture especially drought mitigation, water quality, and RL is significant, even in a middle-income country in Southeast Asia. Therefore, agricultural policies should balance or trade-off between these different services. In short, results from this research could be applied as a useful informative component for the future development of irrigated agricultural policy.EDITED BY Bas Amelung