Predictor of willingness to pay for early warning climate system and agronomy advisories services in Albania: A case study of medicinal plant in “Malesi e Madhe”

• Pages: 64-79

64

Vol.10 No.2

September, 2024

Balkan Journal of

Interdisciplinary Research

E-ISSN 2411-9725

ISSN 2410-759X

Predictor of willingness to pay for early warning climate system and

agronomy advisories services in Albania: A case study of medicinal plant in

“Malesi e Madhe”

DOI: hps://doi.org/10.2478/bjir-2024-0017

Irida Gjermeni

University of Agriculture of Tirana, Koder Kamez, Tirana, Albania

Abstract

Access to useful climate information is critical for adaptation needs of Albanian smallholder

farmers, yet empirical studies documenting the socioeconomic, environmental and household

predictors of access to and willingness to pay for climate information services have been

limited to date. This paper addresses the need by identifying the predictors of access to and

willingness to pay for climate information by smallholder farmers in the northern area of

Albania, a “dangerous hotspot” where slight changes in rainfall and temperature often result

in considerable yield losses. The study uses data collected from 201 household surveys in 5

communities across 29 districts in the “Malesia e Madhe” region of Albania using a simple

random sampling method. Sampling was conducted in end 2023 and start of 2024 and

participants were interviewed face to face by questionnaires following a contingent valuation

method for collecting data for willingness to pay for early warning climate system. The EFA

analysis was performed on farmer’s awareness to climate changes and their impact on quality

and productivity. Our ndings suggest that the majority of smallholders are aware of duration

of drought (95%), increase of number of hot days (88.1%) and presence of weeds (59.7%). From

the ndings, farmers perceive that climate changes have aected the quality of medicinal plants

in the last 5 years, by increasing the number of hot days (96%), number of rainy days (93.5%)

and duration of drought (86.6%), also farmers perceive that climate change has impacted

the yield level by duration of drought (87.1%), increase of hot nights (78.1%) and number of

rainy days (76.1%). The ndings suggest that the majority of smallholder farmers were not

willing to pay for the cost of receiving climate information delivered via SMS. The results

from the marginal analysis suggest that access to climate information is inuenced by farm

topology factors. The marginal eects logistic regression shows statistically signicant eect

in household predictors such as farmer’s size and income. Results suggest that the provision of

climate information should be dened and adopted to meet the needs of smallholder farmers

with dierent socioeconomic backgrounds to enable farmers manage climate risks and build

reasonable adaptive capacity.

1

Vol. 9 No.2

September, 2023

Balkan Journal of Interdisciplinary Research

IIPCCL Publishing, Graz-Austria

E-ISSN 2411-9725

ISSN 2410-759X

Research Article

© 2023 Ardita Abazi Imeri

This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons

Aribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

(hps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Deliberating in the Gray Zone: North Macedonia’s Hybrid Regime and

Deliberative Democracy Exercise

Ardita Abazi Imeri

European Policy Institute (EPI) – Skopje

DOI: hps://doi.org/10.2478/bjir-2023-0001

Abstract

Deliberative polling has emerged as a promising method for promoting democratic reform

and citizen engagement in various contexts, however, its potential and limitations in hybrid

regimes, where democratic governance is challenged by a mix of democratic and authoritarian

features, remain relatively unexplored. This paper focuses on the case of North Macedonia,

as a country that has undergone signicant political and societal transformation especially in

the recent years. Despite eorts to promote democratic reforms, the country continues to face

challenges in terms of ensuring democratic governance and citizen participation. In a hybrid

regime, like North Macedonia’s, political leaders might not be inclined to value citizens’

input, and the media environment might not be free from inuence, which limits access to

varied and reliable sources of information. Civil society organizations may also encounter

limitations on their operations, and institutional assistance may be insucient. Additionally,

the population’s diversity could make it dicult to reach and build trust with citizens. In

this context, deliberative polling represents an opportunity to engage citizens in meaningful

political dialogue and institutional reform. This paper examines the potential of deliberative

polling as a tool for promoting governance in North Macedonia and highlights the challenges

and limitations faced in this process.

Keywords: deliberative poll, hybrid regime, authoritarian, democracy.

1. Introduction

Democracy around the world is in crisis. In general, the state of democracy world-

wide indicates a lack of progress (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2022). Looking at the

global picture, 2022 fell short of expectations for democracy, as it was anticipated that

the lifting of pandemic-related restrictions might result in an improvement in the

overall score. Both the Freedom House Report 2022 and the Economist Intelligence

Unit’s Democracy Index (EIU) 2022 indicate that the state of democracy around the

world is facing signicant challenges and setbacks.

Research Article

© 2024 Irida Gjermeni

This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons

Aribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

(hps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

65

Balkan Journal of

Interdisciplinary Research

E-ISSN 2411-9725

ISSN 2410-759X

Vol.10 No.2

September, 2024

Keywords: farmer’s awareness, early warning weather system, willingness to pay, risk

perceived and managed.

1. Introduction

Agriculture is one of the main pillars of economy in Albania. Agriculture contributes

signicantly to Albanian GDP and provides employment to thousands of low-income

families across the country. This sector has experienced moderate growth over the

past decades, especially in the last decade where the use of information technology

and communications (ICT) was reaching its peak in the agricultural sector.

If we analyze the level of use of information systems in rural areas and the structural

problems faced by actors and economic subjects in the Albanian terrain, the role

of ICT in economic activity in these areas remains weak and with invisible eects

(Mulliri, Shahu and Baraku, 2021)

During the analysis and implementation of an agricultural information system, the

primary step is to identify the demands and preferences of the actors that are part of

this system. As a result of the above, the purpose of the study is to evaluate farmers’

preferences for agricultural information by type, including weather, production

technology, information on inputs, and information on services such as transport,

insurance, credit and counseling prices. In the last decade, there have been several

aempts to build sustainable information systems in agriculture. We can mention the

aempt of German technical cooperation (GTZ) and the Ministry of Agriculture to

build an Agriculture market information system, which monitors farm gate, import

and export prices on a monthly and annual basis. This system failed because it only

covered the information of fruits and vegetables and there was no coherence of the

prices published in the system.

According to a well detailed report wrien by Zhllima (2022) which presents the

National AKIS Action Plan Albania a sequence-based description of specic objectives

and relevant actions for adopting, legitimizing, and developing an AKIS in Albania.

Also in 2016, Swiss-supported RisiAlbania1 and Creative Business Solutions launched

the agricultural information and Intelligence System (AGIS) to provide accurate data

to banks seeking to credit agribusinesses, which in now day is not accessible. During

the last years several studies have been carried out on the willingness to pay for

an AMIS, it is worth mentioning here the study carried out by Zhllima et al (2022),

which analyzes WTP for information, but did not take into account the factors that

inuence WTP or farmers’ commitment. Unlike the results for AMIS and the factors

that inuence it, studies related to the analysis of the willingness to pay for systems

that provide climate information and the factors that inuence this willingness are

not available in Albania.

But the change in climatic conditions has turned out to be the most critical issue at

the global, regional and local level to the point that it is considered the most serious

challenge for humanity in the current century (Kumar, 2014).

Climate change is a serious threat to agriculture sector, deeply aecting the activity

1 For more info: https://www.eda.admin.ch/countries/albania/en/home/news/news.html/countries/albania/en/

meta/n ews/emba ssy/2016/switzerland-supports-innovative-e-platform-of-agricultural-infor