Economic valuation of conservation of genetic resources of wild rice relatives : Assessing the preferences of adjacent community for conserving Oryza granulata in the Wavulpane area

This study was aimed to achieve the specific objective of assessing the preferences of adjacent communities for utilization, benefit sharing and conservation of the genetic resources of Wild Rice Relatives (WRR) in Sri Lanka and to explore the capability of setting the priorities for conservation and management of WRR based on these preferences. The “Wavulpane” village located in the Rathnapura district was selected as the case as: (a) it was reported to be one of the growing areas for the WRR of Oriza granulata, and (b) there were no weedy rice problems prevailing in this village. The “Choice Experiment Models” (CEM) [i.e. stated preference method used to obtain Option Values for non-market goods by exploring the individuals’ stated behavior in a hypothetical setting] were applied. The data were collected from 50 individuals who were well aware of the presence and potential importance of this particular WRR through a Participatory Community Appraisal (PCA) carried out with the support of a structured questionnaire designed specifically for the CEM. Outcome of the Choice Experiment, which used a Fractional Factorial Design to array four attributes and three levels in the choice sets orthogonally, shows that an individual in an adjacent community was Willing-To-Pay nearly Rs. 82 per year for in-situ conservation of WRR. The need of the hour is, therefore, to develop appropriate policy and institutional framework that works for this task to which both short and long term policies as well as stakeholder participation should be guaranteed (i.e. research stations, universities, NGOs

Assessing the preferences of plant breeders for utilization, benefit sharing and priorization of conservation of wild rice relatives in Sri Lanka

The purpose of this study was to assess empirically the preferences of plant breeders for utilization, benefit sharing and conservation of the genetic resources of Wild Rice Relatives (WRR) in Sri Lanka. The “Choice Experiment Models” (CEM), i.e. stated preference method uses to obtain Option Values for non-market goods by exploring the individuals’ stated behavior in a hypothetical setting, were employed with the primary data collected from a panel of reputed plant breeders (n = 30) work at the administrative capacity in various reputed academic and research institutions in Sri Lanka. The data collection process was characterized by a face-to-face interview with each breeder during March to May 2009, which was supported by a structured questionnaire designed specifically for the CEM. The outcome of analysis shows that, from the breeders’ point of view, the benefit for an individual, in general, for conserving WRR for the future is nearly Rs. 10. Given the facts that there are not much significant direct uses of WRR revealed to date; there exists yet unrevealed benefits to the society (e.g. use of favorable genes in WRR to improve the quality of cultivated rice varieties), and the outcome of previous studies divulge that the gene sequence of different WRR populations belong to different geographical area varies significantly, the option value derived through this analysis implies that conservation of WRR can be done in-situ effectively, if people reside close to the areas where they are growing predominately would like to contribute more than the value that the scientists expected. The results highlight the importance of carrying out extensive economic research program focusing of the people adjacent to the areas where WRR growing to estimate such values as so would facilitate setting up alternative institutional arrangements (i.e. public / private) work for effective conservation of CWR, in general, and WRR, in particular

Economic valuation of conservation of genetic resources of wild rice relatives : Assessing the preferences of adjacent community for conserving Oryza granulata in the Wavulpane area

This study was aimed to achieve the specific objective of assessing the preferences of adjacent communities for utilization, benefit sharing and conservation of the genetic resources of Wild Rice Relatives (WRR) in Sri Lanka and to explore the capability of setting the priorities for conservation and management of WRR based on these preferences. The “Wavulpane” village located in the Rathnapura district was selected as the case as: (a) it was reported to be one of the growing areas for the WRR of Oriza granulata, and (b) there were no weedy rice problems prevailing in this village. The “Choice Experiment Models” (CEM) [i.e. stated preference method used to obtain Option Values for non-market goods by exploring the individuals’ stated behavior in a hypothetical setting] were applied. The data were collected from 50 individuals who were well aware of the presence and potential importance of this particular WRR through a Participatory Community Appraisal (PCA) carried out with the support of a structured questionnaire designed specifically for the CEM. Outcome of the Choice Experiment, which used a Fractional Factorial Design to array four attributes and three levels in the choice sets orthogonally, shows that an individual in an adjacent community was Willing-To-Pay nearly Rs. 82 per year for in-situ conservation of WRR. The need of the hour is, therefore, to develop appropriate policy and institutional framework that works for this task to which both short and long term policies as well as stakeholder participation should be guaranteed (i.e. research stations, universities, NGOs