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Frequent food safety problems in recent years have seriously affected China’s public health. The complexity, diversity, and technicality of food safety problems are intertwined, which constantly promotes the Chinese government and the food industry to explore effective food safety governance mechanisms. As the dominant form of vertical coordination in agri-food supply chain, contract farming is conducive to promoting farmers’ safe production behavior, improving food quality and safety, and ensuring public health. However, the low contract performance rate seriously restricts the effect of contract farming on reducing the risk of food safety in China. This paper empirically investigates the role of farmers’ risk attitude and contract arrangements in their enforcement. The data is derived from a household survey and economic field experiment of fruit farmers participating in contract farming in Anhui and Jiangsu provinces of China. We measure farmers’ risk attitude by using an economic field experiment, and examine how risk attitude and contract arrangements affect contract enforcement with a probit model. The results show that contract enforcement is significantly (1% level) influenced by farmers’ risk attitude. Farmers with greater risk aversion and loss aversion and farmers who are more accurate in evaluating probability information are more likely to fulfill the contract. Additionally, most contract arrangements have a significant effect on contract enforcement at the 5% level. Contract arrangements with floor pricing, bonus, and long duration are related to a higher rate of farmers’ contract performance. Furthermore, the factors influencing contract enforcement differ based on the levels of farmer’ risk attitude. The findings of the study may be conducive to formulating relevant agricultural policy to influence farmers’ decision-making and thus improving food safety and ensuring public health.
Jing Hou; Linhai Wu; Bo Hou. Risk Attitude, Contract Arrangements and Enforcement in Food Safety Governance: A China’s Agri-Food Supply Chain Scenario. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2020, 17, 2733 .
AMA StyleJing Hou, Linhai Wu, Bo Hou. Risk Attitude, Contract Arrangements and Enforcement in Food Safety Governance: A China’s Agri-Food Supply Chain Scenario. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020; 17 (8):2733.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJing Hou; Linhai Wu; Bo Hou. 2020. "Risk Attitude, Contract Arrangements and Enforcement in Food Safety Governance: A China’s Agri-Food Supply Chain Scenario." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 8: 2733.
It is of great value to study consumer demand for safe foods in promoting the development of a safe food market system and the reduction of food safety risks, as well as foodborne diseases in China. This paper takes traceable pork as an example and constructs food safety information attributes with ex ante quality verification and ex post traceability. Interactions between safety information attributes and the consumer’s response to cost-driven price changes were investigated for 345 consumers in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, China, using a menu-based choice (MBC) experiment and multivariate probit (MVP) model as analysis tools. The results suggest that food safety information attributes are important to consumers, as the consumers preferred pork quality inspection attributes to pre-incident quality assurance functions. Therefore, it is beneficial to include pork quality inspection attributes in the traceable pork attribute systems during the initial construction of traceable pork markets in China. Attribute price was an important factor that affected consumers’ choice of information attributes. When customization cannot be achieved, a profile composed of elastic pork quality inspection attribute and supply chain–internal traceability attribute would be the most preferred traceable pork product in the market based on the need of building a fully functional traceable food system and reducing food safety risks. In addition, there was a strong substitution relationship between different information attributes, and there was heterogeneity in consumers’ choice of information attributes. Therefore, the government should support manufacturers in producing multi-level safe food to meet diverse consumer demand.
Bo Hou; Jing Hou; Linhai Wu; Hou. Consumer Preferences for Traceable Food with Different Functions of Safety Information Attributes: Evidence from a Menu-Based Choice Experiment in China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2019, 17, 146 .
AMA StyleBo Hou, Jing Hou, Linhai Wu, Hou. Consumer Preferences for Traceable Food with Different Functions of Safety Information Attributes: Evidence from a Menu-Based Choice Experiment in China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019; 17 (1):146.
Chicago/Turabian StyleBo Hou; Jing Hou; Linhai Wu; Hou. 2019. "Consumer Preferences for Traceable Food with Different Functions of Safety Information Attributes: Evidence from a Menu-Based Choice Experiment in China." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 1: 146.
Farmers’ adoption of low-carbon agriculture is conductive to addressing climate change and achieving sustainable development of agriculture. The purpose of this study is to explore farmers’ decision-making processes regarding low-carbon production and to provide a reference for the targeted support policies of low-carbon agriculture. The data was derived from a household survey of 442 rice farmers conducted in Jiangsu Province, China in 2017. Participants were interviewed face-to-face using questionnaires, and local interviewers were used in order to maximize the reliability of the results. The theoretical basis for our analysis was an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB). We applied a structural equation model (SEM) to investigate the correlations among farmers’ decision-making processes regarding low-carbon production and observable characteristics. Furthermore, we explored the differences in adoption decisions regarding low-carbon agriculture among different groups of farmers based on production scale and region, respectively. The results indicate that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and contract farming participation are significantly positively correlated with farmers’ intention toward low-carbon production, and that farmers’ low-carbon production intention and contract farming participation have significant positive correlations with their behavior regarding low-carbon production. A subsample analysis shows that the subjective norm for farmers with a small production scale is more strongly correlated with their adoption decisions regarding low-carbon agriculture than that it is for farmers with a large production scale. Additionally, in less developed regions, farmers’ attitude is more strongly correlated with their adoption decisions regarding low-carbon agriculture than it is for farmers in developed regions.
Jing Hou; Bo Hou. Farmers’ Adoption of Low-Carbon Agriculture in China: An Extended Theory of the Planned Behavior Model. Sustainability 2019, 11, 1399 .
AMA StyleJing Hou, Bo Hou. Farmers’ Adoption of Low-Carbon Agriculture in China: An Extended Theory of the Planned Behavior Model. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (5):1399.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJing Hou; Bo Hou. 2019. "Farmers’ Adoption of Low-Carbon Agriculture in China: An Extended Theory of the Planned Behavior Model." Sustainability 11, no. 5: 1399.