FARMER PREFERENCES FOR SOCIOECONOMIC AND TECHNICAL INTERVENTIONS IN GROUNDNUT PRODUCTION SYSTEM IN NIGER - CONJOINT AND ORDERED PROBIT ANALYSES

Crop production decisions reflect preferences of farmers which are bas ed on the structure of incentives and constraints that characterize ag ricultural systems. Therefore, an assessment of the intensities of far mer preferences for technical and socioeconomic interventions can prov ide useful guidance for the choice of appropriate strategies to improv e productivity and incomes. Based on surveys conducted in groundnut-gr owing zones of Niger in West Africa, utilities of selected socioeconom ic and technical interventions to farmers were derived through applica tion of conjoint and ordered probit analyses. Across all regional and gender subgroups of respondents, groundnut farmers attach significant importance to access to credit and reliable markets for pods. The intr oduction of new and more productive varieties per se would not signifi cantly contribute to utilities of farmers at the present time. This po ssibly implies that until market and credit constraints are alleviated , farmers have lower utility for more productive varieties. Regional d iversities were observed in the significance of utilities groundnut fa rmers can gain from the availability of local small-scale groundnut oi l processing plant, fertilizer and changes to traditional rules govern ing access to land. There is no evidence of gender-based diversity in utilities and, therefore, prioritization of the interventions on the b asis of observed utilities will benefit both gender components. (C) 19 97 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.