Willingness to pay for quality traits and implications for sweetpotato variety development

Crop variety development has long been driven primarily by considerations for agronomic gains, disease/pest resistance and agro-climatic suitability. While this is critical for food security, new varieties also need to be widely acceptable to achieve impact. This study set out to understand the preference for often ignored quality-related traits which are critical for variety acceptability, and how these are traded-off by end users in variety choice. Qualitative studies were conducted to understand main traits preferred by both men and women in major sweetpotato growing areas of Mozambique. A Bayesian efficient design was used in designing the choice experiment while a generalized multinomial logit model was used in the estimation, with a sample of 900 randomly selected farmers. We find remarkably high preference for quality traits. Farmers have a higher WTP for Vitamin A and dry matter content, compared to WTP for an agronomic trait like drought tolerance. Other quality traits like sweet taste and root size also have positive and significant WTP. Heterogeneity across gender show flesh color is an important trait for women. For wide acceptability and inclusive adoption and impact, breeding efforts need to equally prioritize these quality traits, and pay attention to gender differences in trait preference.