The Fee-Based Agricultural Information Service: An Analysis of Farmers' Willingness to Pay and Its Influencing Factors

With the deepening of reforming rural economic system, it is difficult for agricultural information service, simply relaying on free service, to meet the demands of the market economy and to provide more customized service to farmers. Based on questionnaires completed by 293 farmer households in 40 villages and towns in 10 counties of Sichuan province and Chongqing municipality, this paper explores farmers' decision-making behaviors with consideration of information cost, by establishing utility functions and Logistic models. The investigation suggests that farmers' willingness to pay is significantly influenced by factors like their education, agricultural acreage, income of agricultural production and operation and their accessibility of information services. Based on this, this paper proposes some strategies, such as improving farmers' ability of searching and using information through various channels and following the path of combining 'public-interset information service' with 'commercial information service'.