Consumers’ Response to Genetically Modified Ingredients in Processed Food in an Emerging Economy

Genetically modified (GM) foods are available in many countries including post–Soviet Union countries. However, empirical evidence on consumer acceptance for this region is scarce. In this study, we investigate consumers’ willingness to purchase a processed food containing GM ingredients. For this purpose, a consumer survey was conducted in 2015 in Tajikistan. In many aspects, our results confirm previous empirical findings showing that women are more skeptical toward GM food and a higher level of respondents’ education and the presence of minors in households are negatively correlated with their willingness to purchase a processed food containing GM ingredients. Moreover, a higher risk perception of GM food is negatively associated with the probability to purchase and consume such foods. However, our results indicate that risk perceptions of GM food seem to be relatively low in comparison to other studies with 41.5% of Tajik respondents connecting no risks with GM food. This result is surprising given the existing knowledge about post–Soviet Union consumers who are usually assumed to reject GM food due to their strong focus on naturalness.     

Economic Risk and Water Quality Protection in Agriculture

Producers' and consumers' risk perceptions and preferences can affect perceived costs and benefits of agricultural water quality protection. Many studies find that integrated pest management actually reduces economic risks to farmers. Results from crop rotation and conservation tillage studies are mixed, while nutrient management studies indicate a potential for higher risk compared with conventional practices. Uncertainty about pollution damages to water resources is likely also to increase the perceived benefits of a given quantity of water quality protection practices. Public policies to reduce uncertainty about the costs and benefits of water quality protection practices may produce net social benefits.     

社会信任、感知价值对农户秸秆还田技术采纳意愿的影响——基于鄂豫两省样本农户的实证

目的 研究揭示社会信任、感知价值对农户秸秆还田技术采纳意愿的影响机制和效应。方法 文章基于社会嵌入理论和感知价值理论,以秸秆还田为例,利用湖北、河南1 776份农户调查数据,采用结构方程模型（SEM）实证分析社会信任、感知价值对农户秸秆还田技术采纳意愿的影响,并探讨不同分化水平下农户采纳意愿的差异性。结果 （1）社会信任、感知利益对农户采纳意愿具有显著正向影响,而感知风险具有显著负向影响;（2）社会信任主要通过感知利益间接作用于农户秸秆还田技术采纳意愿,感知风险的中介作用不显著,其中介效应分为别为0.165和0.001;（3）从多群组分析结果来看,低水平分化和高垂直分化农户的社会信任对其秸秆还田技术采纳意愿的影响更强烈。结论 政府应构建农户高度信任的外部环境,提高农户多维度价值感知,针对不同分化水平的农户制定差异化宣传策略,以切实增强农户采纳秸秆还田技术的积极意愿,实现秸秆综合利用与生态保护的双重目标。     

东北黑土区农户保护性耕作技术采用行为研究基于政府规制的调节效应分析

目的 探究黑土区农户保护性耕作技术采用行为,对推动黑土区农业可持续发展具有重要意义。方法 文章从感知价值视角出发,利用东北黑土区的733份农户调研数据,采用结构方程模型,探讨了政府规制在农户感知价值与保护性耕作技术采用行为过程中的调节作用。结果 （1）农户的感知利益和感知风险对农户采用保护性耕作技术的意愿和行为都具有直接和间接的显著影响,其中感知利益对农户采用保护性耕作技术意愿的正向影响程度最大,感知风险对农户采用保护性耕作技术行为的负向影响程度最大;（2）政府规制在农户感知价值与保护性耕作技术采用行为发生过程中具有调节作用,激励型政策的实施促进了农户技术采用意愿向采用行为的转化,约束型政策的实施扩大了农户感知风险对技术采用意愿的负向影响。结论 地方政府应通过提升农户保护性耕作技术感知利益、降低感知风险、优化激励型和约束型政策等方面,引导黑土区农户采用保护性耕作技术。     

Estimating the benefits of farm animal welfare legislation using the contingent valuation method

This paper presents the method and findings of a contingent valuation (CV) study that aimed to elicit United Kingdom citizens' willingness to pay to support legislation to phase out the use of battery cages for egg production in the European Union (EU). The method takes account of various biases associated with the CV technique, including ‘warm glow’, ‘part‐whole’ and sample response biases. Estimated mean willingness to pay to support the legislation is used to estimate the annual benefit of the legislation to UK citizens. This is compared with the estimated annual costs of the legislation over a 12‐year period, which allows for readjustment by the UK egg industry. The analysis shows that the estimated benefits of the legislation outweigh the costs. The study demonstrates that CV is a potentially useful technique for assessing the likely benefits associated with proposed legislation. However, estimates of CV studies must be treated with caution. It is important that they are derived from carefully designed surveys and that the willingness to pay estimation method allows for various biases.     

Product quality and value from consumer perspective—An application to wooden products

Product quality as perceived by consumers is studied with the use of empirical survey data on wooden flooring/panelling materials and on wooden furniture markets in Finland. The results indicate that consumers’ quality perceptions are consistent for the two product categories. Perceived product quality may be understood as a hierarchical structure, which consists of tangible and intangible dimensions, and is fairly consistent for different products. The most abstract dimensions are reflected in more specific sub-dimensions and product attributes. For consumers, the quality of the tangible product is more important than the quality of the product intangibles in the case of wooden products. Perceived product value is determined as customers’ judgement of the relationship between perceived product quality and price. It was also observed to be a two-dimensional structure with tangible and intangible dimensions. The observed dimensions of perceived product quality and value were logically linked.     

Risk and risk management in organic and conventional cash crop farming in Norway

This study presents empirical insight into organic and conventional cash crop farmers' perceptions of risk and risk management strategies, and identifies socio-economic variables linked to these perceptions. The data originate from a questionnaire survey of farmers in Norway. The results indicate that organic farmers perceived themselves to be less risk averse than conventional farmers. For both groups, crop prices and yield variability were the two top rated sources of risk, followed by institutional risks. The two groups evaluated risk management strategies quite similarly; favoured strategies were good liquidity and to prevent and reduce crop diseases and pests. The farmers' evaluation of sources of risk and choice of risk strategies depended on various socio-economic variables. The importance of institutional risks implies that policy makers should be cautious about changing policy capriciously and they should consider strategic policy initiatives that give farmers more long-term reliability.     

Major Psychological Factors Affecting Acceptance of New Breeding Techniques for Crops

New plant biotechnologies called new breeding techniques (NBT), which will follow the present genetically modified (GM) technology, have appeared and are attracting attention worldwide. The first purpose of this study was to show consumer attitudes toward traditional plant breeding, GM, and NBT crops. The second purpose was to verify the validity of a psychological model determining the acceptance of NBT crops. A survey was conducted in Japan with 657 randomly selected adult participants. The results showed that perceived risk, perceived benefit, trust, sense of bioethics, anxiety, and anger play an important role in the personal and public acceptance of NBT and indicated that trust and anxiety are especially important factors in both situations.     

Using Contingent Valuation to Measure User and Nonuser Benefits: An Application to Public Transit

The contingent valuation method (CVM) was used to measure the value of a community service, rural transit, that has both user and nonuser values. Traditional focus groups and a CVM questionnaire provide estimates of willingness to pay and willingness to accept. Tobit analysis was used to test relationships among the variables. Income was not related to the amount of perceived benefit, but the alternative desire to provide transit for others was statistically significant. Ranges for possible total benefits, user and nonuser, are provided for the test transit systems. Proper aggregation of benefits to the population was found to be critical.     

Factors Influencing Farmers' Crop Insurance Decisions

Farmers' decisions to purchase crop insurance and their choices among alternative products are analyzed using a two-stage estimation procedure. The influences of risk perceptions, competing risk management options, as well structural and demographic differences are evaluated. The likelihood for crop insurance usage is found to be higher for larger, older, less tenured, more highly leveraged farms, and by those with higher perceived yield risks. The marginal effects of size, age, perceived yield risk, perceived importance of risk management activities, and other structural and demographic variables are identified in terms of their influences on choices among alternative crop insurance products.     

Farmers’ perceptions and management of risk in rice/shrimp farming systems in South-West Coastal Bangladesh

Farmers in Bangladesh face considerable risk due to fluctuations in biophysical and economic conditions, but the response to these risks is poorly understood. In particular, there is a need to better understand the endogenous management of risk in the rice/shrimp farming systems that have emerged in the inner coastal zone of Bangladesh. This paper draws on a case study of a typical rice/shrimp farming village in Khulna District to explore: (a) farmers’ perceptions of risks and their management responses, (b) risk-return trade-offs within small-, medium-, and large-farm households, and (c) the role of other farm and non-farm activities in mitigating risks to household livelihoods. Farm-level data were collected through a reconnaissance survey, a village census, household case studies, and a sample survey of 73 households. Representative farm budgets were constructed for the three farm-size classes. The key performance indicators calculated were gross margin (GM), net income (NI), and GM per workday of family labour. The riskiness of the rice/shrimp system was assessed for each farm type using farmers’ estimates of low, normal, and high yields and prices to specify triangular distributions. Cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) for GM, NI, and GM per workday were generated. A whole-farm economic analysis was also conducted to assess the relative contributions of different sources of income for each farm type. With access to saline water for shrimp farming in the dry season and fresh water for rice in the wet season, farmers have developed and progressively adapted an alternating rice/shrimp farming system that has minimised the trade-offs between the two crops and provides a good return to household and village resources for all farm types. The system is subject to significant production and market risks, especially the shrimp component. However, farmers have clearly perceived these risks and ameliorated them through a range of production, marketing, and management strategies. With these risk management practices, the rice/shrimp cropping system is economically viable, given the current variation in yields and prices. The greater risk associated with the shrimp component was offset by the renewed stability of the rice component over the past decade, and the risks of the whole cropping system were offset by other farm and non-farm sources of livelihood. Development interventions need to work with farmers to provide further options (suitable rice varieties, solutions to shrimp disease, improved village and transport infrastructure) if this resilience is to be maintained.     

Public Attitudes toward Agrobiotechnology: The Mediating Role of Risk Perceptions on the Impact of Trust, Awareness, and Outrage

Using Fishbein's multiattribute and mediation models as conceptual frameworks, we propose that the impact of trust, awareness, sense of outrage, and socio-demographic variables on attitudes toward agrobiotechnology are mediated by risk perceptions. The proposition was validated using large survey data collected in the United States and United Kingdom. Results show that trust, sense of outrage, and socio-demographic factors play an important role in shaping public attitudes about agrobitoechnology, largely via their links to risk perceptions. Moreover, risk perceptions exert a greater effect on public attitudes toward agrobiotechnology than benefit perceptions. Finally, the attitudes of U.K. consumers were more susceptible to negative attributes when compared with U.S. consumers.     

Risk Perceptions, Risk Preference, and Acceptance of Risky Food

Consumers' risk preferences are often overlooked in studies of consumer demand for risky food. We find that risk preferences elicited through context-less lottery choices are significantly related to consumers' stated preferences for genetically modified (GM) food. These results suggest risk preferences elicited in the laboratory are not artificial in the sense that they appear to be related to the same risk preferences that govern other individual decisions such as food choice. Consistent with theoretical expectations, risk perceptions and risk preferences were found to be significant determinants of acceptance of GM food, which has important implications for explaining consumer behavior.     

Risk-Efficient Irrigation Strategies for Wheat

Agricultural production is risky. When farmers are risk-averse, they are likely to put a premium on production methods that reduce perceived risks. Irrigation is generally believed to be a risk-reducing input. By using the concept of stochastic dominance, risk-efficient irrigation policies for wheat grown in central India are identified and quantitative estimates of benefits due to risk reduction are obtained. Such benefits were found to be of a large order of magnitude. The more common methods such as mean variance analysis tended to over-estimate the benefits.     

Buyers’ perceptions of importance and willingness‐to‐pay for certain attributes of source and production verified bred heifers

This research reports buyers’ perceptions of and willingness‐to‐pay for replacement heifers produced through a rigorous, third‐party verified production protocol. Survey respondents attended and registered to purchase heifers at sanctioned Missouri Show‐Me‐Select Replacement Heifer Program^® sales between 1997 and 2002. Responses indicate that pen uniformity, artificially inseminated to calving ease bull, synchronized calving, and heifer size are perceived as important, and their willingness‐to‐pay for these characteristics is economically significant. Though prior research suggests willingness‐to‐pay estimates particularly for inexperienced consumers may be biased, we find little difference between inexperienced and experienced buyers and also little difference from hedonic estimates of heifer characteristics’ value.     

Differentiating the consumer benefits from labeling of GM food products

Although recurrent evidence is found that consumers have different willingness to pay for GM and non-GM products, there is disagreement in the scientific community about the size of consumer benefits from GM labeling. In this article we use a theoretical model based on a standard constant elasticity of substitution (CES) to explain the importance of the quality effect. It is shown that failing to consider the quality effect may yield an overestimation of benefits from GM labeling, voluntary or mandatory.     

Farmer perceptions of legumes and their functions in smallholder farming systems in east Africa

Legumes play an important role in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) farming systems through the provision of food, feed, fuel, income and a range of biophysical benefits, such as soil fertility enhancement and erosion control. However, their full potential is not being realized. The purpose of this study was to assess farmers’ perceptions and knowledge towards legumes and the rationale of farmers for current legume production practices using a survey of 268 farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya. Most of the farmers had some knowledge of legumes and their characteristics. However, they had little knowledge of some key functions, including soil erosion control and soil fertility improvement. Most farmers relied on radio and other farmers for legume-related information. Farmers with relatively large livestock holdings ranked provision of livestock feed as an important legume function. We conclude that farmers put more value on short-term benefits of legumes including food and income than long-term benefits such as natural resource management and thus grain legumes are more readily identified by farmers than forage species. Also, we conclude that farmers require more than just information about legumes to increase uptake, they also require improved market access to procure inputs and sell products to realize other benefits that are associated with growing legumes.     

The Distribution of CAP Benefits among Member States and the Impact of a Partial Re‐nationalisation: A Note

Using an approach based on the PSE/CSE methodology, this paper estimates the distribution of benefits due to the CAP among the EU member states and the impact on them of a CAP partial re‐nationalisation scenario under the current policy mix as well as under full decoupling. Currently, Ireland, Denmark, Greece, Spain and France are found to benefit from the operation of the CAP. Full decoupling increases the benefits to these countries and the losses of Germany and the UK, while it decreases the losses of some others. Re‐nationalisation benefits today's losers, particularly Germany. Overall, the CAP is found to promote cohesion among EU member states, especially when moving closer to full decoupling. Partial re‐nationalisation decreases the CAP effect on cohesion.     

Consumer Attitudes toward GM Food and Pesticide Residues in India

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) vegetables will likely be commercialized in India soon. The technology could reduce pesticide residues in foods. Yet it is unclear whether consumers will appreciate this health advantage, or whether potential GM crop risks will dominate their attitudes. Using contingent valuation methods and a sample of urban households, we find that almost 60% of consumers would purchase Bt vegetables at current conventional vegetable prices, indicating a high acceptance level. The rest would purchase at a certain price discount. Strikingly, the required discount increases for people particularly concerned about pesticide residues, demonstrating that risk-averse consumers do not easily offset technology benefits against perceived risks.     

小农户参与现代农业行为的影响因素——基于甘肃348户农户调查分析

目的 实现小农户与现代农业发展有机衔接是我国农业现代化建设的重要内容。方法 文章基于解构计划行为理论,利用甘肃省348户农户调查数据,采用多群组结构方程模型分析小农户参与现代农业行为的影响因素。结果 （1）小农户参与现代农业行为意愿模型中,农户家庭禀赋是最主要的影响因素,行为态度、感知行为控制次之,交易费用和主观规范的影响力最小。（2）小农户参与现代农业的意愿显著正向影响参与行为。（3）感知绩效对小农户行为态度的影响强于感知风险;小农户对同伴的信任度明显高于对上级政府和村集体的信任度;缔约条件对小农户参与意愿的影响更有效,农户较为重视进入门槛高低;劳动力数量、农户受教育水平以及对收购产品中介的熟悉程度对小农户行为意愿均具有重要影响。（4）多群组分析得出不同类型小农户参与现代农业意愿与行为的影响因素存在显著差异;家庭禀赋对自给型、兼业型和退出型农户的参与意愿具有显著的负向影响,对发展型农户参与意愿具有显著的正向影响;行为态度、主观规范、感知行为控制等变量对不同类型小农户参与意愿与行为存在显著的正向影响,且这些变量在不同类型农户参与现代农业意愿与行为路径中具有调节效应。结论 要加强现代农业宣传力度,改善农户行为态度;积极营造社会氛围,发挥周围人群的示范效应;提供技术、资金以及市场信息支持,增强农户对现代农业的掌控力;大力培育和发展新型农业经营主体,为小农户融入现代农业设计差异化的政策支持体系。