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Consumer valuation of organic horticultural products in Lama community of Togo

¹University of Kara, Lab. of Economics and Management Sciences, Togo
²University of Kara, Agricultural and Environnement Economics, Togo
³University of Kara, Agroecology, Togo

Abstract

Although organic farming is increasingly perceived as a viable alternative to conventional agriculture in the face of deteriorating environmental ecosystems, little is known about consumers’ preferences for organic products in Sub-Saharan Africa particularly in Togo. This paper bridges this gap in research and investigates the extent to which consumer values organic food, specifically organic fruits and vegetables, in Lama Community in Togo. Thus, the objective of the paper is to analyse the premium for organic horticultural products in the Lama community. To do this, student difference test is used to estimate the value of the premium, bivariate Probit to analyse consumer’s attitude to organic horticultural products, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) to analyse factors that explain the premium for organic horticultural products. The analyses are based on ground data collected on 100 households in the study area. The results show that the average premium for organic fruits is 1694 F CFA (2.58 €) in periods of abundance and 3258 FCFA in periods of shortage per week while that of vegetables is 2006 F CFA (3.05 €) in periods of abundance and 3032 F CFA (4.57 €) in periods of shortage. Socio-demographic factors of the household such as size, dependency ratio, age, sex, level of education and sector of activity of the head of the household explain the decision for a household to use or not organic horticultural products. All of these results contribute to laying the foundations to promote sustainable farming practices that make use of local solutions to address global environmental challenges.

This work is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the Minodu project (FKZ 01LL2202A) in the funding line "Sustainable land management in sub-Saharan Africa: Improving livelihoods through local research.

Keywords: Lama Community of Togo, organic horticultural product, premium, Probit model

Contact Address: Mèba Grasse Akpe, University of Kara, Agricultural and Environnement Economics, Togo à Kara, Togo, e-mail: akpegrace646gmail.com