Farmer Preferences for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Hybrid versus Inbred Rice: Evidence from Bihar, India

Recent efforts to develop rice cultivars with drought-tolerance (DT) traits have resulted in the release of several varieties that demonstrate significant resiliency to drought stresses. In this paper, we use discrete choice experiments to examine farmers’ preferences for DT traits and explore heterogeneity in these preferences using primary data collected in rural Bihar, India. We evaluate farmers’ preference for yield performance under different weather scenarios, duration, seed reusability and seeding rate. Our results show that farmers value the reduction in yield variability offered by DT cultivars, but are willing to pay even more for cultivars that offer yield advantages even under normal conditions. Rice farmers were found to prefer short duration cultivars, which provide an alternative pathway by which farmers can manage drought risk. Finally, we find that farmers highly value seed-reusability, and would, other things equal, demand a discount on hybrid seeds that do not have this characteristic.