Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/63314

As a way of increasing the percent of capacity use of grain related facilities, discriminatory pricing system is attended. In order to introduce the system, it is necessary that the elasticity of demand for rice drying service to utility fee varies among rice farmers. But, there has been no study that tried to examine the relationship between the elasticity and characteristics of farmer (e.g. size of paddy rice field). This article aimed to explore the possibility of introducing a discriminatory pricing system to grain related facilities for increasing the percent of capacity use. Through a choice-based conjoint analysis of rice farmer's choice of rice drying types, following results are obtained. First, factors which determine rice farmer's choice are utility fee, length of staying at facility (staying time), closing time of receiving harvested paddy rice from farmers, size of paddy rice filed, occupation of drying equipment, and main crop. Besides, labor and conflict of harvesting paddy rice with operation of other crops are included for large farmers. Second, marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for staying time and closing time per hour are 190yen and 101yen per 60kg, respectively. The reason which MWTP for staying time is greater than that for closing time is that rice farmers can't do anything while staying at facility. Third, the utility fee elasticity varies among size of paddy rice filed. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that discriminatory pricing with respect to size of paddy rice filed makes possible to increase the percent of capacity use.