Albanian Smallholders under Climate Change: A Willingness to Pay Assessment 

Ada Metaliu 

Department of Economics and Rural Development Policies, Faculty of Economy and Agribusiness, 

Agricultural University of Tirana, Albania 

Abstract: Climate change is becoming one of main threat of our life, and the environment we live in. Agriculture as a sector directly affected by climate change is already vulnerable. In addition, extreme weather events are occurring more frequently by causing insecurity and instability in agriculture production and in food markets. In his Book the economics of Climate change (Nicholas Stern., 2007) imply that if we do not take action in adapting to climate change the damages will be even higher. Unluckily, not all farmers can easily adapt to climate changes results. Some farmers are more willing to pay in order to adapt to climate change, while some others are willing to accept the damages. These conditions depend on farmers’ incomes and the level of the damages which might need governmental intervention. In this paper, we have presented a problematic situation of smallholders in Albania in particular Shkodra region, regarding to adaptive capacities of climate change. For most of smallholders, the willingness to pay is limited, because of low incomes, poor technology, as well as lack of information and awareness. The purpose of this paper was to analyze the main factors of smallholders in Shkodra, which determine willingness to pay or to accept the damage from climate change. For this research we conducted a questionnaire by interviewing 185 farmers in 14 municipalities in Shkodra region. The questionnaire was designed to get general information regarding to farms characteristics, climate impacts in the region as well as identifying their willingness to pay to adapt to climate change. A number of statistical methods were used, including regression analysis and descriptive, and comparative qualitative analysis. When asked if they were willing to pay or to accept the impacts of climate change most of the smallholders were more willing to accept the damages. The findings show that, climate risk, low incomes, as well as farms conditions were some of significant variables in determining willingness to pay. 

Key words: climate change, smallholders, willingness to pay