Determinants for Farmers’ Willingness to Pay for Positively Selected Local Chicks in Eastern and Central Uganda

Despite rising demand, the supply of local chickens is declining, with their market share dropping from 87.7% to 69.9%, while exotic chicken populations have quadrupled from 4.6 million in 2008 to 17.8 million by 2021. To address this, the National Agricultural Research Organization is improving the production and productivity of Local chickens through positive selection of local chickens. This study investigates farmers’ willingness to pay for Positively selected Local Chicks (PLC) in Central and Eastern Uganda. A study involving 305 randomly selected poultry farming households from Central and Eastern Uganda. The study applies a probit model, to analyze the determinants that influence the probability that poultry farmers are willing to pay the market price bid (2700 UGX) for day-old positively selected local chicks. The dependent variable was the probability that poultry farmers are willing to pay the prevailing average market price whereby, they were categorized as 1= willingness to pay 2700 UGX and 0=Not willing to pay. An ordered probit model was used to analyze factors that influence the choice of price to be paid for a day-old positively selected Local chick. The dependent variable was the range of prices poultry farmers are willing to pay for day-old positively selected local chicken. Prices ranged from 1890, 2160, 2430, 2565, 2700, 2835, 2970, 3240, and 3510. They were categorized into; <i>lower bid </i>(less than 2700) market price bid (2700) and high bid (more than 2700 UGX). The study further analyzed the factors that influenced the maximum price that farmers are willing to pay for day-old positively selected local chicken, multiple linear regression was used. The study revealed that 89.84% of farmers were willing to pay the lowest price (1890 UGX) for day-old positively selected local chicks, while only 25.57% were willing to pay the market price of 2700 UGX. Factors influencing willingness to pay include the age of the farmer, household size, total land owned, education level, access to credit, membership in a farmer’s group, phone ownership, distance to the nearest market, and radio ownership. These findings suggest that targeted interventions are needed to enhance the adoption of positively selected local chicks.