From breeders to consumers: A WTP study along the value chain of pearl millet and cowpea in Senegal

Understanding the perspectives of value chain actors is critical for the implementation of a new crop variety once it goes into the market. Few studies explore the full spectrum of value chain actors, however, which leads to skewed understandings of how much a new crop should be sold for. Willingness-to-pay (WTP) is an up-and-coming method that measures the maximum hypothetical price at or below which an actor in the value chain is willing to pay to purchase a given new breeding product.

This WTP experiment will ask central questions: To what extent are trait preferences aligned between producers and consumers? Are preferences of intermediary actors, like processors, relevant for crop breeding programs? How can breeders better participate in WTP studies?

With a focus on value chain actors of finger millet and cowpea — two historically under-resourced crops in West Africa — the project has a twofold mission. First, it aims to expand the WTP method to collect information on all the nodes in pearl millet and cowpea value chain — from breeders to consumers. Second, the project intends to be a peer-learning environment, where junior researchers in ILCI units can jointly design and implement a solid research framework. By testing and employing this method, the team will investigate to what extent and why trait preferences diverge among value chain actors, and what consequences these differences entail for crop breeding teams.