This study examines smallholder farmers’ preferences for the uptake of contractual climate-smart agroforestry, which yields economic and ecosystem benefits. A discrete choice experiment was conducted with smallholder farmers in Ethiopia to elicit their willingness to participate in a payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme that incentivizes integrating faidherbia albida (a fertilizer tree) in their mono-cropping farming system. Attributes evaluated are “number of planted trees”, “payment amount”, “payment type”, and “contract period”. The presence of heterogeneity in the choice behavior of farmers warrants the use of the generalized multinomial logit and latent class conditional logit models to allow for farmer- and class-specific preferences, respectively. The results show that farmers derive higher utility from up-front payments. Farmers also strongly prefer food as the mode of payment than cash. Moreover, low numbers of mandatory planted trees and short-term contracts are found to be essential attributes that positively affect farmers’ decisions to take-up a contractual arrangement to grow trees on their agricultural land. Our analysis also shows the presence of heterogeneity in preferences across segments of farmers in conjunction with differences in household characteristics. These findings shed light on the considerations that must be accounted for when designing and implementing environmental policies such as PES schemes that promote large-scale adoption of climate-smart agroforestry, which would transform smallholder agriculture into a sustainable farming system.

这项研究调查了小农户对采用合同型气候智能型农林业的偏好，这产生了经济和生态系统效益。与埃塞俄比亚小农户进行了一项离散选择实验，以激发他们参加生态系统服务付费（PES）计划的意愿，该计划旨在鼓励整合费耶菲德氏菌（一种肥料树）在他们的单作农作系统中。评估的属性为“植树数量”，“付款金额”，“付款类型”和“合同期限”。农民的选择行为中存在异质性，因此有必要使用广义多项式logit模型和隐性类条件logit模型来分别考虑农民和特定于阶级的偏好。结果表明，农民从前期付款中获得了更高的效用。与现金相比，农民也更倾向于将粮食作为支付方式。此外，发现少量的强制性植树和短期合同是必不可少的属性，对农民决定采取合同安排在其农业土地上种植树木产生积极影响。我们的分析还表明，不同农户群体的偏好存在异质性，并伴随着家庭特征的差异。这些发现阐明了在设计和实施环境政策时必须考虑的考虑因素，例如可促进大规模采用气候智能农林业的PES计划，这将把小农农业转变为可持续的耕作体系。