Smallholder farmers’ willingness to pay for agricultural extension and advisory services in Malawi: Case of Mzimba, Lilongwe, and Zomba districts

Agricultural extension systems (AES) in developing countries face mounting pressure to reform, driven by chronic underfunding and institutional inefficiencies that hinder responsiveness to smallholder farmers’ needs. Advocacy for pluralistic and demand-driven extension services has grown significantly, mainly advocating for financing mechanisms based on the principle of those who benefit must pay. This study investigates smallholder farmers’ Willingness to Pay (WTP) for agricultural extension and advisory services (AEAS) with focus on those provided through Malawi’s public agriculture extension service (PAES). It aims to understand farmer demand for AEAS within a cost-sharing framework in a developing country context. Using cross-sectional survey data from 351 randomly selected respondents, the study employed an open-ended contingent valuation method to estimate WTP, explored preferences for designing a cost-sharing PAES, and utilized Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression with robust standard errors to identify determinants of WTP. The findings reveal that a majority (86.32%) of smallholder farmers are willing to pay for AEASs, with services such as disease and pest control, crop husbandry, livestock breeding and on-farm input production being the most demanded. Farm mechanization, livestock breeding, and farm mapping emerged as the most valued in terms of WTP price. The majority of the smallholder farmers would prefer to pay for AEASs through agricultural extension worker (45%) and mobile money transfers (40%) and receive the paid-for services in face-to-face interactions, with near even preferences between individual consultation (47.2%) and group-based sessions (38.7%). Key factors influencing WTP include gender, marital status, education, family size, landholding, and enterprise type. There is strong support among smallholder farmers in Malawi for cost-shared AEASs, provided delivery and payment systems are accessible and tailored to their socio-economic realities. Policymakers should design equitable financing models aligned with farmers’ capacities and preferences.