As income is rising and urbanization progressing, the consumption of meat and dairy products is increasing, especially in developing countries. However, increasing livestock production leads to challenges that need to be addressed, such as yielding environmental pollution and causing climate change. Due to these circumstances, the importance of sustainable livestock farming has been highlighted in order to effectively utilize natural resources and to protect the environment. We analyzed consumers’ preference and willingness to pay for milk, one of the representative dairy products, which was produced in a sustainable way. Among the various attributes of milk, marginal willingness to pay for “performing sustainability” through mountainous farming was estimated to be the biggest. The willingness to pay was revealed to be higher for the consumer group with a high awareness of sustainable farming than the consumer group with low awareness. The empirical results in this study suggest that it is important to consider the economic feasibility of dairy farming by forming a consensus with consumers through publicity and changing the production pattern to promote sustainability.
The eco-friendly certification system is designed to ensure safe agricultural products to consumers while minimizing environmental pollution. However, despite its advantages, it is not widely adopted due to a possible decrease of farmers’ income. In order to provide implication for activating the eco-friendly certification system, this paper examines the attributes of green tea which affect consumers’ preferences and estimates consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the eco-friendly certification in China. A choice experiment survey is employed for data collection, and the random utility model is used to estimate the preference for the certification and quality of green tea. The attribute that yields the highest marginal WTP turns out to be the organic certification for which WTP is $115.9/250 g higher than for no certification. Also, the analytical results indicate that the group with high trust is willing to pay up to $214.6/250 g more for green tea with organic certification compared to the one with no certification. The empirical results suggest that it is important to build the consumers’ awareness and trust toward the certification to activate the eco-friendly certification system.
This paper analyzes the changes in consumer preference that may occur when the current Genetically Modified (GM) crops policy is strengthened by applying mandatory labeling to all processed food that uses GM crops as raw materials. We estimate the change in consumers’ willingness to pays for cooking oil before and after providing the information on GM raw material contained in the currently marketed cooking oil to consumers. To this end, a hypothetical cooking oil product using non-GM raw materials is set up, and consumers are classified into high and low awareness groups for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and those who prefer and do not prefer organic foods. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) analyses show the amount of willingness to pay before providing the information for high and low awareness groups for GMOs increases from 23.8 dollars and 18.0 dollars per 1.8 L to 25.6 dollars and 20.3 dollars, respectively. The value of the information on GM raw materials of a consumer group with high prior knowledge of GMOs is estimated to be 1.8 dollars, and the value of the information of a consumer group with low prior knowledge is estimated to be 2.4 dollars per 1.8 L. The willingness to pay (WTP) change according to the information provision of the group with the highest prior knowledge of GMOs is estimated to be 0.6 dollars, and the WTP change is estimated to be 3.6 dollars for the group with lowest prior knowledge. This implies that the lower the prior knowledge possessed by a consumer, the higher the value of information on GM raw materials elicited.
About Me
I'm agricultural economist in Korea and interated in evaluation of environment value.
I'm agricultural economist in Korea and interated in evaluation of environment value.