Smallholder farmers willingness to pay for tree planting as a climate adaptation strategy in the North Wollo Zone of Ethiopia

Abstract

Climate change is an increasing environmental issue that has threatened food security and rural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa, where most farmers depend on climate-vulnerable rain-fed agricultural systems, including Ethiopia. In response, tree planting has been promoted as part of Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative (GLI), serving as an effective climate adaptation strategy to increase resilience and restore degraded forest ecosystems. This study was conducted to examine the factors influencing rural households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for tree planting and to estimate the overall labour contribution of such initiative in the study area. A multistage sampling approach was used to select both study districts and sampled respondents, and a face-to-face survey of 385 randomly selected farm households was administered. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using a double-bounded contingent valuation survey supplemented with open-ended follow-up questions. Descriptive statistics and a bivariate probit model were employed to analyze the data. The findings revealed that the average annual labour contribution of smallholder farmers for tree planting was 35.2 labour days per household, which suggests that rural households place a fair amount of labour into keeping the GLI program implementation. The model results revealed that sex of household head, education level, farming experience, training, perception of climate change, and access to climate information positively and significantly influenced farmers' WTP, whereas credit use, distance to market, and initial bid value had negative and significant effects. The estimated aggregate welfare benefit of the proposed tree planting was 4,908,112 labour days, equivalent to 1,717,839,200 birrs per year, implying substantial economic gains through creating rural employment and ecological resilience via biodiversity conservation. On the basis of these findings, the study recommends that local administrators should strengthen efforts through green legacy initiative campaigns to increase awareness, encourage participation, and promote sustainable forest restoration.