Beyond the bids: Lessons from farmers' reflections on Vickrey auctions of sweetpotato vines in Rwanda

Abstract

Context

The use of high-quality seed can significantly enhance nutrition, food security, poverty alleviation, and climate change adaptation in rural farming communities. Economic valuation methods can be used to assess farmers' demand for such seed. However, the reproductive biology of seed and the social and economic institutions surrounding their production and exchange vary widely across crops and regions.

Objective

It is important to understand how such contextual factors relate to the assumptions that underly economic valuation methods. In this paper, we qualitatively evaluated an experimental Vickery auction conducted in Rwanda which aimed to identify farmers demand for disease-free vines of orange-fleshed sweet potato rich in Vitamin A.

Method

Data were gathered through observations of and in-depth interviews with participating farmers, focusing on their experiences, strategies, and motivations during the auction. We examined farmers' reflections on the experimental auctions—rather than the auction results themselves—to understand context-specificity and methodological replicability.

Results and conclusion

Our findings reveal that farmers assigned value to the vines in diverse ways, shaped by personal experience, social norms, and local exchange practices—often diverging from the assumptions of auction theory. These dynamics raise concerns about the validity and reliability of the auction outcomes.

Significance

Although auctions are an increasingly popular tool to evaluate the value of seeds and traits in smallholder farming systems, and although considerable effort has been put into examining mechanisms leading to product overestimation and underestimation in auction settings, this study offers a novel qualitative perspective that uncovers several reasons that explain deviations in the context of an experimental Vickrey auction for sweetpotato vines in rural Rwanda. Our findings highlight the challenges of using auction-based methods in capturing demand when used to value goods that are reproductive, socially embedded, and exchanged outside formal markets.