Modeling heterogeneity in consumer preferences for select food safety attributes in China

Food safety issues often arise from asymmetric information between consumers and suppliers with regards to product-specific attributes. Severe food safety scandals were observed recently in China. These events not only caused direct economic and life losses, but also created distrust in the Chinese food system domestically, as well as internationally. While much attention has focused on the problems plaguing the Chinese government’s food inspection system, little research has been dedicated to analyzing Chinese consumers’ concerns surrounding food safety. In this paper, we measure consumer preferences for select food safety attributes in pork and take food safety risk perceptions into account. Several choice experiment models, including latent class and random parameters logit, are constructed to capture heterogeneity in consumer preferences. Our results suggest that Chinese consumers have the highest willingness-to-pay for a government certification program, followed by third-party certification, a traceability system, and a product-specific information label. The results of this study call for the direct involvement of the Chinese government in the food safety system. A stricter monitoring system will not only improve consumer well-being in the short-run, but also restore consumers’ trust leading to a social welfare increase in the long run.     

Smallholder market participation under transactions costs: Maize supply and fertilizer demand in Kenya

This paper assessed the effects of transactions costs—relative to price and non-price factors—on smallholder marketed surplus and input use in Kenya. A selectivity model was used that accounts for the effects of transactions costs, assets, technology, and support services in promoting input use and generating a marketable surplus. Output supply and input demand responses to changes in transactions costs and price and non-price factors were estimated and decomposed into market entry and intensity. The results showed that while transactions costs indeed have significant negative effects on market participation, institutional innovations—such as group marketing—are also emerging to mitigate the costs of accessing markets. Output price has no effect on output market entry and only provides incentives for increased supply by sellers. On the other hand, both price and non-price factors have significant influence on adoption and intensity of input use. Overall, the findings suggest that policy options are available other than price policies to promote input use and marketed surplus. The paper concludes with implications for policy to induce greater input–output market participation among smallholders in Africa.     

Supply chain differentiation,contract agriculture,and farmers’ marketing preferences: The case of sweet pepper in Thailand

There is an emerging body of literature analyzing how smallholder farmers in developing countries can be linked to modern supply chains. However, most of the available studies concentrate on farm and farmer characteristics, failing to capture details of institutional arrangements between farmers and traders. Moreover, farmers’ preferences have rarely been considered. Here, we address these gaps by analyzing different market channels for sweet pepper in Thailand. Using data from a survey and choice experiment with farmers, we find that there is a general preference for marketing options that do not involve a contract. Additional provision of inputs and credit can increase the attractiveness of contracts. Yet, the most important factor for farmers is to personally know the buyer they deal with, which may be related to issues of trust. Some policy implications are discussed.     

Demand for ecolabeled seafood in the Japanese market: A conjoint analysis of the impact of information and interaction with other labels

The use of seafood ecolabels is expanding in the world marketplace, but so are labels indicating other product attributes, such as country of origin and wild vs. farmed. The interactive effects of these labels and attributes in evaluating consumers’ preferences for ecolabeled seafood are relatively unexplored. In this paper we investigate (1) the direct and interactive effects of seafood ecolabels with other common fish labels, and (2) how consumers’ perceptions about the state of marine stocks and the valuation of ecolabels may be affected by different information. We find moderate interactive effects between ecolabels and country of origin labels, whereas the valuation for seafood ecolabels is fairly high. In terms of information, we find that consumers’ perceptions about fish stock levels changed (negatively) after receiving information on declining stock levels, and more sensationalized information led to increased change. However, valuation for a seafood ecolabel increases only when the information was perceived positively (credible/interesting); whereas exaggerated information (which was also perceived less credible) had insignificant effects on WTP.