Forschungsprojekte - Sabine Liebenehm

Economics of African Animal Trypanosomosis (AAT) management strategies under risk and time preferences

African animal trypanosomosis (AAT) in cattle and the threat of widespread resistance to trypanocidal drugs, that has been the major input of disease control and prevention, are important production risks to resource-poor cattle farmers in smallholder crop-livestock production systems in the cotton belt of West Africa. Recent studies in that region underline the urgency to improve the understanding of drug resistance development and to find ways of its sustainable containment and prevention. The overall goal of this research is to analyze options that can lead to the sustainability of livestock production in spite of AAT and drug resistance. In this context the decision making behavior of farmers with regard to two factors, namely time preference and attitude towards risk plays an important role. These are two major variables affecting farmers’ input choice of disease control and prevention. Based on the simultaneous elicitation of these parameters by means of economic field experiments among a representative sample of farmers in Mali and Burkina Faso these information are applied to a bio-economic model suitable to compare disease control strategies. 

The overall goal of this research is to analyze livestock disease control options that can ensure the sustainability of livestock dependent household systems in West Africa.

 High degrees of risk-aversion and myopic behavior lower the willingness to adopt sustainable disease control strategies. Based on the recently collected data from the economic field experiments it is aimed to derive a better understanding of the currently suboptimal situation and to develop potential solutions. A bio-economic model will be developed that can capture the interactions between vector, host and farmers’ treatment decisions, and the resulting consequences on cattle productivity. In this respect a major question is the interaction between the epidemiological aspects of livestock disease management and the behavioral features of human decision making. The research project has two specific objectives, i.e.:

• Analyse the data on risk and time preferences as well as subjective probabilities that have been elicited by economic field experiments from January to February 2011.
• Assess the long-term productivity of AAT disease control strategies including trypanocides in a dynamic modeling framework.

This project is funded by DFG.