FARMER WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR IMPROVED IRRIGATION WATER QUALITY AND PRODUCE INNOCUOUS FOODS IN IRRIGATION DISTRICT 003 TULA, HIDALGO

Irrigation district 003 Tula, Hidalgo, is an example of wastewater irrigation in Mexico; however, it results in greater pollution for the environment, farmers, and consumers. The aim of this work was to determine farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for treated, better-quality water, thus producing innocuous products. A sample of 104 farmers was obtained through simple randomized sampling. The contingent valuation method was used, with two econometric limited dependent variable models, where the interest is primarily in the probability of a response to a binary indicator. The non-linear adjusted binary response models were logit and probit. The best model, according to the log pseudolikelihood, Akaike information criterion, pseudo-R-squared criteria, and the number of correctly predicted cases, was the logit model. The results indicate that education (22.6 %) and income levels (20.3 %) have positive effects on WTP, whereas the opposite occurred with the fee (-0.026 %), the number of economic dependents (-11 %), and the number of hectares planted (-4.2 %). If the farmer considers that there are risks to the health of consumers of foods produced with untreated residual waters, the WTP increases by 11 %. The logit and probit models produced an average WTP of MXN 1649.18 and 1685.08, respectively. The reuse of wastewater requires compliance with acceptable and required quality standards for crops to produce healthy foods that protect the health of farmers and consumers.