Using a Choice Experiment to Estimate Farmers’ Valuation of Agrobiodiversity on Hungarian Small Farms

Agrobiodiversity is a crucial environmental resource. Much of the agrobiodiversity remaining in situ today is found on the semi-subsistence farms of poorer countries and the small-scale farms or home gardens of more industrialised nations. The traditional farms of Hungary are an example. Labelled “home gardens” as a reflection of their institutional identity during the collectivisation period, they are micro-agroecosystems that provide important functions such as food security and diet quality. This paper applies the choice experiment method to estimate the private benefits farmers derive from four components of the agrobiodiversity found in Hungarian home gardens: richness of crop varieties and fruit trees; crop landraces; integrated crop and livestock production; and soil micro-organism diversity.