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

Abstract

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.