Preventing food waste is important. Analyzing the effects of food waste attitudes on urban residents’ waste production behaviors is necessary to reduce food waste. As Shanghai is a mega-city with a population of 24 million people, once food is adequately supplied, more attention is paid to the safety of food in terms of quantity, quality, and nutrition. COVID-19 gave a shock to the food supply in Shanghai, which in turn resulted in food waste behavior. The moderating effect of pandemic during the COVID-19 is one that has rarely been mentioned in previous studies. An investigation of urban residents was conducted in Shanghai. A total of 1030 valid questionnaires were collected in October 2020. This study examined the influence of food waste attitudes on food waste behavior under the moderating effects of pandemic expectations, quantity safety, quality safety, and price stability using a multivariate ordered probit model. The results show that food waste attitudes had a significant negative effect on food waste behavior at a p < 0.01 level of significance, which means that the more people feel shame about food waste, the less food waste they will have. The interaction coefficient between food waste attitudes and pandemic expectations was positive at a p < 0.1 level of significance. This paper concludes with strategies for dealing with food waste in the future.

Introduction: With increasing consumer concern regarding food safety, willingness to pay (WTP) for food has become a significant focal point of research. This study explored consumer willingness to pay for traceable pork in Shanghai with additional quality credit information.Methods: In October of 2020, 669 valid respondents were surveyed across 15 urban districts in Shanghai. By employing the contingent valuation method and a binary logit model, we empirically analyze consumer WTP for credit-traceable pork and its influencing factors, and estimate the average WTP.Results: The results indicate the following. (1) As bid prices increase, fewer consumers are willing to pay extra for credit-traceable pork. Specifically, 94.59% of the consumers were willing to pay an additional price when the bid price was 2 yuan/kg, whereas only 10.53% were willing to pay 30 yuan/kg. (2) Nine variables significantly influence consumer WTP for credit-traceable pork: bid price, purchase experience, trust level, concern for pork, confidence in pork, purchasing from specialty stores, local pork purchasing habits, gender, and education level. On average, consumers are willing to pay an additional 8.48 yuan/kg for credit-traceable pork compared with regular pork. Although certain variables do not exhibit a significant impact, the WTP for credit-traceable pork varies considerably among different consumer groups.Discussion: Based on these findings, we propose strategies to expedite the development of a credit traceability system for agricultural products.

As climate change intensifies, food security has received widespread attention. This study examines the development of Japan’s food security index and its relationship with climate change. From these findings, a food security indicator system for Japan was established. The food security system has six dimensions: availability, nutrition, climate change, society, economics, and fertilizer. The factors affecting food security are complex and variable, and this paper adds the Fertilizer Security Index (FSI) to the previous studies. The overuse of fertilizers directly contributes to soil and atmospheric pollution, which can indirectly lead to issues of food quality insecurity. Including this factor within the food security system is fully justified. This enhances the precision of the food security index system to some degree. The results showed that Japan’s overall food security index exhibited a slight downward trend from 0.113 in 1980 to 0.099 in 2022. Food security reached its lowest point of about 0.067 in 1993. In addition, all five indicators, except the fertilizer index, put pressure on the food security index. Due to the uncertainty inherent in climate change, specifically its ambiguous positive and negative impacts on food security, the Climate Change Security Index provides detailed evidence in this paper supporting whether climate change contributes to or undermines food security. Finally, the study put forward recommendations to ensure food security.