Factors influencing farmers' willingness to pay for animal health services and preference for private veterinary practitioners

The study was carried out in Tarai region of Uttarakhand, with the objectives of ascertaining factors influencing farmers' willingness to pay for animal health services (AHS) and preference for private veterinary practitioners. The findings of the study revealed that para-veterinary staff compared poorly with private and government veterinarians in regard to quality of services provided. Indeed quality was perceived by vast majority of farmers as their most preferred attribute of AHS. Price as an attribute was rated quite low compared to quality and even other attributes like proximity, which implied that if quality AHS is guaranteed, price is not an important determinant in the farmers' uptake decisions. A vast majority of farmers asserted that they were willing to pay (WTP) for quality AHS. Furthermore, the poorer the farmer, the greater was the probability that he will be WTP. Distance to market was observed as a significant determinant of WTP. The findings also revealed that the preference for private veterinarian increased with the wealth status. Risk attitude was also found to influence choice of AHS provider. Risk averse farmers preferred government veterinarians while risk taking farmers showed a tendency to prefer private practitioner. The overall message of the findings was that there are variations in the valuation of AHS attributes - price being only one of them - that cause farmers belonging to different wealth categories to prefer different AHS providers. The study suggests that the animal health delivery system may be reformed to enable greater participation of private sector.