An evaluation of farmers’ willingness to pay for efficient irrigation for sustainable usage of resources: the GAP-Harran Plain case, Turkey

Abstract We evaluated farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for efficient irrigation and improved water productivity with the economic benefits of sustainable use of resources in the long-run, while reducing irrigation-related problems in the GAP-Harran Plain, Turkey. The data come from a sample of 21,094 farmers; 461 of them were chosen via simple random sampling method and interviewed face to face. The Tobit regression model was used for analysis. The results indicate that the average WTP value is $133.7 per hectares comprising 8.87% of net income of farmers, whilst the total amount derived from the WTP was around 20.05 million for Harran Plain. Explanatory factors such as primary school graduates, users of modern irrigation technologies, a crop pattern involving large areas of cotton and wheat increase the WTP by 4.4, 4.3 and 3.8%, respectively. On the other hand, married farmers, property owners, gravity irrigation users and one of the index variables (indexb, measuring farmers’ perceptions about natural resources) lower the WTP by 9.3, 3.3, 13.7 and 0.9%, respectively. These results have valuable and important implications for decision makers to draw better sustainable natural resources policies in future for the good in question.