The willingness to adopt agro-ecological innovations: Application of choice modelling to Caribbean banana planters

This paper proposes an ex ante evaluation of the willingness to adopt agro-ecological innovations aimed at reducing pesticide use for banana production in the French West Indies. Four innovative systems, including intercropping, improved fallow and new pest-tolerant varieties, are proposed to a sample of 607 planters, with innovation and policy attributes calibrated from a bio-economic farm model. The model interacts technological and economic innovation attributes with farmer individual factors, and allows for a dual source of unobserved heterogeneity. We estimate a system of random coefficient Logit models, to obtain marginal values of innovation traits that can be useful for targeting farm types with appropriate innovations and designing policies for securing agricultural revenue.

► We model the stated preferences to adopt agro-ecological innovations by Caribbean banana planters. ► The choice experiment includes calibrated innovation traits and individual attitudes. ► Minimum compensation payments are computed from marginal values of innovation .attributes. ► Farmer heterogeneity matters in designing adoption surveys and estimating marginal values of attributes.