How does farmers' current usage of crop straws influence the willingness-to-accept price to sell?

To further develop the second-generation biofuel industry, both government and business sectors need to better comprehend the full costs of buying crop straws from farmers – understanding transportation and baling costs alone is insufficient. Due to the limited market activity of crop straws, this paper uses the contingent valuation method to elicit farmers' willingness-to-accept (WTA) price to sell their crop straws in northeast China. The results from finite mixed models showed that the estimated WTA for maize straw was 9.6 yuan/ton, 43.2 yuan/ton and 83.2 yuan/ton across different farm groups. For rice straw, the WTA for the first farm group was 51 yuan/ton and 204 yuan/ton for the second group. Our results also show that both rice and maize farmers place a higher price on crop straw if it is used in more productive ways, such as for domestic fuel, animal feed or selling; but place a lower price when it is burnt as crop residue in the field.