Does empowerment influence women's willingness to pay for integrated pest management practices? : a case study of mango growers in Zambia

Mango is an important fruit crop in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), including Zambia, due to its nutritional value and contribution to food security. However, the invasive and mango-infesting fruit fly is a significant constraint in mango production. Therefore, icipe and partners developed and disseminated the integrated pest management package to curb this menace. The current study uses household-level data from 325 smallholder mango-growing households from selected regions in Zambia to evaluate how empowerment affects women's willingness to pay (WTP) for an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) package for the suppression of mango-infesting fruit flies. We used a double-bounded contingent valuation model to determine the association between Project-Level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), other social-economics factors, and WTP. The results show that women's empowerment status positively and significantly increased the likelihood of considering a higher bid for the IPM package. Other factors affecting women's WTP for the IPM package were women's education level, access to extension services, non-farm occupation, and household income from mangoes, with a positive and significant influence on their WTP. However, distance to the input market, perception of the effectiveness of current fruit fly management methods, and level of mango loss due to fruit flies negatively influenced WTP for the IPM package. Empowering women, especially increasing their access to extension services, and providing livelihood alternatives would increase their uptake of pest management technologies. Efforts to lower women's domestic workloads, boost their finances, and sensitize others in the community to promote women's freedom of movement would be vital to empowering women hence increasing their uptake of new agricultural innovations.