Assessment of willingness to pay for climate services among murrah buffalo farmers in India based on the temperature humidity index

Climate services are demand-driven, timely, easy to access and can help vulnerable section of society to adapt to climate variability and change; and build resilience. This study represents one of the first attempts in the dairy sector to assess farmers willingness to pay for customized climate services for buffalo farming. A weekly module based on the Temperature Humidity Index (THI) for Murrah buffalo rearing was developed and disseminated to farmers of Haryana through three channels: WhatsApp, Text SMS, and a standardized mobile application, assigned randomly. The study employed a contingent valuation method (CVM) to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for climate services and used interval regression model to analyse factors influencing their payment decisions The study revealed that 80% of respondents in the text SMS group, 83.33% from WhatsApp group and 92.22% from Mobile Application group were willing to pay an average price of INR 94.33, INR106.00 and INR137.22, respectively, for an annual package of weekly climate services for 50 weeks. The results of the interval regression model indicate that cropping intensity, herd size, and exposure to extreme climatic events exert a positive and statistically significant influence on farmers' willingness to pay for climate services, whereas access to climate information, risk orientation and age were found to have negative influence. Farmers' acceptance of climate services in terms of their WTP underlines their recognition of the critical importance of climate services in their farms' daily operational decision-making, hence findings throw a light on necessary policy drafts to ensure a timely and customized climate services for Murrah buffalo farmers.