Willingness to pay of Nigerian poultry producers and feed millers for aflatoxin‐safe maize

Abstract

Dietary aflatoxin exposure is a widespread problem in the developing world and causes severe negative health consequences to humans and livestock animals. A new biological control product, called Aflasafe, has been introduced in Nigeria to mitigate aflatoxin contamination of maize in the field and in storage. No known prior work has estimated how much African agribusinesses using maize for animal feed will pay for aflatoxin‐safe maize. This study measured the levels of Aflasafe awareness, surveyed current aflatoxin management practices, and estimated, using choice experiments, willingness to pay (WTP) for aflatoxin‐safe maize by Nigerian poultry producers and feed millers. Data was gathered from 272 orally administered surveys, which included discrete choice experiments examining maize purchasing decisions. Results suggest that the proportion of enterprises that were aware of aflatoxin was found to vary across states. Two latent classes of Nigerian poultry producers and feed millers were identified that were willing to pay average premiums of 4.9% and 30.9%, respectively for maize with 10 parts per billion (ppb) aflatoxin concentration relative to maize with 20 ppb aflatoxin concentration. Both latent classes were, on average, willing to pay larger premiums for maize with 4 ppb aflatoxin concentration. There was evidence that latent class membership, and hence WTP, varied based on awareness of aflatoxin and across geographies.

“Ground-Truthing” Efficacy of Biological Control for Aflatoxin Mitigation in Farmers’ Fields in Nigeria: From Field Trials to Commercial Usage, a 10-Year Study

“…The strategies include awareness and sensitization campaigns, use of improved agronomic practices, improved pre-harvest practices, use of the aflatoxin biocontrol product, improved harvest and post-harvest practices, sorting of moldy/diseased grains, proper storage and use of hermetic bags, testing, market development, policies, and any other novel, practical, and available management tool for farmers. These holistic interventions have helped to create markets willing to pay for aflatoxin standard-compliant maize (Johnson et al, 2018, 2019) resulting in farmers’ willingness to pay $11-19/ha for biocontrol (Ayedun et al, 2017). Farm-based agricultural enterprises have enabled thousands of farmers to adopt aflatoxin management strategies, centered in biocontrol, to produce and commercialize more than 200,000 tons of aflatoxin-compliant maize demonstrating that sustainability and scaling of the technology is possible.…”

Performance of Broilers Fed with Maize Colonized by Either Toxigenic or Atoxigenic Strains of Aspergillus flavus with and without an Aflatoxin-Sequestering Agent

“…In Nigeria, many poultry producers are procuring maize treated with Aflasafe because, after testing the aflatoxin-safe maize in their farms, they realized that it provides greater benefits than using non-treated maize or any of the ASAs available in the market [27,28]. Certain classes of feed manufacturers and poultry producers were willing to pay average premiums of 4.9% to 30.9% for maize with <10 ppb aflatoxin content, and even larger premium for maize with <4 ppb aflatoxin content, relative to maize with <20 ppb aflatoxin content [41].…”

Willingness to pay of the native chicken eggs in urban supermarket: evidence from Semarang, Indonesia

“…When compared to purebred chicken eggs, native chicken eggs have ingredient value per 100 grams containing 174 calories, 10.8 grams of protein, 4.9 mg of iron and 61.5 g of retinol or vitamin A. Besides, local native chicken eggs tastes better and fishy is lower (Johnson et al, 2020).…”