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The pet industry has grown tremendously in China, and pet food is a major product in the market. Although characteristics of pet food are important considerations for veterinarians and consumers, t...

This article fills the gap in literature by studying consumers’ perceptions of the genetically modified (GM) food labeling systems in China, in terms of the comparison between the mandatory “Contai...

Because of economic development and food safety concerns, an increasing number of middle-class consumers in China are demanding higher-quality food and more environmentally friendly food pr...

PurposeThis paper traces the timeline and milestones of Chinese graduate students in agricultural economics and related fields at foreign universities, with an emphasis on North American universities, since the early 1980s, and assesses the contributions of Chinese doctoral recipients from foreign universities to agricultural economic research and education in North America and China.Design/methodology/approachData from department and college websites, associations of agricultural economics, university libraries and databases of theses and dissertations and selected agricultural economic journals in English and Chinese are used to attain the above purposes through graphical and bibliometric analyses.FindingsFirst, the numbers of Chinese doctoral recipients and tenure-track and tenured faculty in agricultural economics at North American universities have increased steadily and significantly. Second, Chinese scholars in North America have achieved tremendous success in agricultural economic research via high-quality publications, prestigious awards, editorship of top journals, leadership in professional organizations, etc. Third, more Chinese doctoral recipients overseas have increasingly returned to China and are playing important roles in China’s agricultural economic research, education and international collaboration. Fourth, the publications of overseas Chinese scholars in Chinese journals and those of their counterparts working in China on topics beyond China are relatively limited and more collaboration may enhance the global impacts of Chinese agricultural economists.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is limited by data availability and quality and the data problems are discussed in the paper.Originality/valueThis is likely the first study to assess the contributions of Chinese doctoral recipients from foreign universities to agricultural economic research and education in China and abroad.

Artificial intelligence is touted as the future of medicine. Classical algorithms for the detection of common bile duct stones (CBD) have had poor clinical uptake due to low accuracy. This study explores the challenges of developing and implementing a machine-learning model for the prediction of CBD stones in patients presenting with acute biliary disease (ABD). All patients presenting acutely to Christchurch Hospital over a two-year period with ABD were retrospectively identified. Clinical data points including lab test results, demographics and ethnicity were recorded. Several statistical techniques were utilised to develop a machine-learning model. Issues with data collection, quality, interpretation and barriers to implementation were identified and highlighted. Issues with patient identification, coding accuracy, and implementation were encountered. In total, 1315 patients met inclusion criteria. Incorrect international classification of disease 10 (ICD-10) coding was noted in 36% (137/382) of patients recorded as having CBD stones. Patients with CBD stones were significantly older and had higher aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), bilirubin and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) levels (p

Since COVID-19 was first detected in China in 2019, governments around the world have imposed strict measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which substantially impacted people’s life. Consumers’ food consumption behavior has also changed accordingly with reduced grocery shopping frequency, replaced in-person grocery shopping with online shopping, and increased valuation on food. In this paper, we aim to investigate the change in Chinese consumers’ food consumption and their willingness to pay (WTP) for vegetables and meat, using a dataset with 1206 online samples collected between February and March 2020. Consumers’ WTP for vegetables and meat is estimated using a double-bounded dichotomous contingent valuation design, and factors affecting their WTPs are also investigated. Results show that consumers have a higher WTP for these food products during the pandemic, and their WTP is positively affected by their anticipated duration of the COVID-19, their online shopping shares, their direct exposure to infected patients, their gender, and their income. These results imply that the food industry shall try to develop online market channels as consumers are willing to share the costs, while lower-income consumers may not be able to meet their food needs with prices increased beyond their WTP and thus may call for the government’s support.

PurposeIn this paper, we provide a simple conceptual framework with empirical analysis to investigate the effect of product attributes and e-vendor characteristics that are potentially included in the online shopper’s information search on their online shopping behavior in China.Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines consumers’ online shopping frequency for food/grocery using an ordered logit model and for fresh food (a subcategory of food/grocery) using a two-part model, considering product attributes, e-vendor characteristics, and consumer perceptions and characteristics.FindingsThe results show that product origin is an influencing factor in shopping for fresh food online, reflecting consumers’ growing interests in imported food or specialty food from other areas. Consumers are more likely to shop online for fresh food if they perceive online shopping as having a price advantage. But consumers who view price as a top factor are less likely to buy fresh food online frequently. Thus competitive prices might be a motive for online fresh food shopping, but consumers concerned about price do not necessarily shop frequently. Negative perceptions of product freshness reduce consumers’ likelihood and frequency of shopping for fresh food online. Concerns on food quality and e-vendors’ credibility prevent consumers from frequently shopping for fresh food online. Social and demographic characteristics also influence consumers’ decisions.Originality/valueThis paper provides a better understanding of consumer’s online grocery shopping preferences and sheds light on policy and regulation design and implementation in the e-commerce industry, which will ultimately protect and benefit consumers.

Crop insurance is the most common agricultural risk management instrument. In developing countries, crop insurance is becoming popular but is often provided with lower coverage, lower premiums and less subsidy than in developed countries. We use a labelled choice experiment method to investigate Chinese smallholder corn growers’ preferences for alternative types of insurance. In addition to traditional yield insurance, we assess farmers’ willingness to pay for coverage levels in price, revenue and weather index insurance, which are currently at the experimental stage in China. We find farmer preferences for these various types of insurance to be heterogeneous. On average, farmers are willing to pay for all types of insurance and for additional coverage but only at the current high subsidy level. We explore heterogeneity in willingness to pay and find that farmers’ positive past insurance experience plays a very important role in their demand for insurance.

We use a temporary ban on inter-province shipping of live hogs induced by the 2018 outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in China as a natural experiment to study spatial mechanisms behind the dynamics of market integration. With a unique dataset of weekly provincial hog prices, we employ a novel spatial network model to estimate the strength of price co-movement across provinces pre and post the ban. Results indicate that, in the highly integrated national market prior to the ban, longer geographical distances between two provinces did not weaken the strength of their price linkage. The ban broken down spatial integration. Longer distances became a significant obstacle to spatial price linkage in the post-ban periods, implying faster re-integration of hog prices between proximate provinces than remote ones. The negative effect of distance can be rationalized by the interplay between arbitrage opportunities and imperfect information. Our findings highlight information transparency as a key to market integration post shipping bans used to curb animal pandemics like ASF. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

PurposeThis research is to examine the impact of online channels on food stockpile behavior.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, we use bivariate probit models to empirically investigate the impact of online purchasing channels on Chinese urban consumer food hoarding behaviors with random survey samples.FindingsResults show that fresh food e-commerce channels are more likely to be associated with panic stockpile behaviors due to higher likelihood of supply shortages than offline channels with government assistance in logistic management. In contrast, community group buy, another format of e-commerce, appears superior in satisfying the consumer needs and easing the panic buying perception.Practical implicationsIt suggests that online channels may have diverse impacts on consumers' panic stockpiling behaviors during the extreme situations. Online channels need to develop efficient supply chains to be more resilient to extreme situations and the government shall recognize the increasing share of the online channels together with traditional offline channels when implementing supporting policies.Social implicationsWith ever increasing share of online channels, it is imperative in terms of policy implications to understand how would online channels affect hoarding behavior.Originality/valueWe are the first study in online shopping's impact on food stockpile during pandemics using a random sample. Although food stockpile behavior at times of emergency have been investigated in many literature, there are no empirical studies on the impact of online channels on stockpile behaviors under extreme situations. Unlike disasters that immediately impact every entity in supply chains covering producers, vendors, distribution centers and retailers, pandemics did not render supply chains affected immediately, but rather increase consumers' willingness to shop online to avoid virus. Thus, Covid-19 provides a natural experiment to investigate the online channels' impact on stockpile behavior.

Ready-to-eat breakfast cereals vary widely in terms of nutrition and price. The diversity in cereal offerings makes it ideal for the study of preferences for individual nutrients and the potential impact that providing nutritional information may have on consumer purchasing behavior. Using a survey of 1,265 Midwestern residents, a random parameters logit model was employed to estimate the willingness to pay for nutritional elements of ready-to-eat breakfast cereal. Household demographic data, including household food security status, were collected. Agricultural and food businesses may seek to provide product information, including nutritional information, to their customers. In addition, national and local policies may seek to empower consumers’ decision making through education. Nutritional information may not have the intended impact of influencing healthier choices. Responses from those shown educational material on nutrition were tested and found not different from respondents not shown the information.

Using home‐scan data set from Kantar Worldpanel, we conduct an empirical study on Chinese urban consumer shopping behavior from online and offline channels, using yogurt as an example. Results confirm the advantages of E‐commerce relative to traditional offline retail channel in terms of keeping consumers loyal. Results also indicate the online and offline markets are of different business models, in that the online market is a separate market from offline even for the same brand. There exists evidence of brand loyalty for online shoppers but not offline. However, it is more challenging for online late entrants to build brand loyalty because consumers are price sensitive online. Firms are recommended to think of new and differentiated products online, which focus more on quality instead of price to catch the young generation with increasing income.

Food safety becomes an important issue in fast developing economies when a large growing market is supplied by many small producers through a prolonged supply chain. China is facing such a serious problem with its growing dairy market seeing serious food safety scandals. In this article, we examine a new organizational structure recently promoted by Chinese government, dairy complex, and its effects on farmers’ behaviors related to safe production and the effectiveness of such behavior on the raw milk safety, using a joint production function under risk theoretical framework. Results show that farmers’ production practices such as basic production environment and hygienic condition, disease prevention, and source and use of feed all contribute to the food safety of raw milk. Complex is an important factor contributing to farmers’ adoption of such safety production practices, together with the supervision by government, production scale, contracts with processors, and price of raw milk. We, thus, found that dairy complex as an organization structure can influence the safety of raw milk indirectly through its impacts on farmers’ production behaviors. Another important finding is that unsafe milk is a result of uncertainty when less strict production practice is used by risk lover producers, and the complexes work well for such farmers by pushing them to take more conservative safety measurements. This innovative production system can be a good measure for developing economies with similar small producer problems.

Existing studies on farmers' willingness to reuse agricultural biomass waste usually focus on individual and social economic characteristics without consideration of the underlying psychological factors. This paper uses the theory of planned behavior, a typical social psychology model, to identify the psychological constructs that affect farmers' intentions to reuse agricultural biomass waste for carbon emission abatement. According to this theory, an individual's behavior is driven by the individual's intention, which in turn is determined by the individual's attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the logical relationships among these constructs. The results showed that farmers' intentions were significantly determined by their attitudes, followed by their perceived behavioral controls. Meanwhile, multiple-group analyses were conducted to determine the differences of the driving factors between different types of farmers on their intentions to reuse agricultural biomass waste. Subjective norms were proven to be a factor affecting the reuse intentions of the farmers who are female, highly educated, having high income or less farming experience. These findings can be used by policy-makers to formulate incentive policies to motivate farmers' agricultural biomass waste reuse intentions or even behaviors. Effective approaches should be developed to cultivate farmers' positive attitudes, ecological benefits awareness and social norms consciousness, in order to arouse their enthusiasm for participating in reuse practice to mitigate climate change. The conclusions of this study also provide an important scientific basis for developing countries and regions to encourage farmers to reuse agricultural biomass waste for carbon emission abatement.

Consumers in China have grown increasingly concerned with the safety of their food as evidenced by the numerous media reports of foodborne illness outbreaks in recent years. Consumer confidence in food purchases can be improved through better labeling on food packaging. Chinese consumers' risk perceptions and how it impacts the valuation of a product's attributes in terms of price premiums are explored in this study. As pork is a staple meat in China, a choice modeling approach was used to quantify the economic value of labeling on pork for food safety, country of origin, environment practices, and animal welfare. Risk perceptions of becoming ill from imported or domestic pork were incorporated and willingness to pay (WTP) values were quantified. Results reveal that food safety has the greatest premium among all of the attributes, and incorporating risk perceptions leads to generally higher WTP values. We find evidence that Chinese urban consumers in large cities show a genuine preference for animal welfare and environmental stewardship, independent of the believed better taste and safety of meat from such production practices. Results imply that consumers not only gain the greatest utility from this labeling but also suggest that there is a latent demand for this product characteristic from which foreign and domestic pork producers can benefit.

This study explores the major reasons for Chinese small dairy farms to accept the new organization structure, dairy complex (DC), and the discrepancies between the actual effect and farmers’ perceptions. Our results show that the frequency of milk refusal, herd scale and farmers’ age contribute to farmers’ decision in accepting DCs, while sale price and disease prevention do not have significant influence. Independent farmers’ perceived effects and the actual effects of DCs in improving raw milk safety and price are consistent, but there exists misperception of DCs’ effect in disease prevention.

We investigate the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the total factor productivity of Chinese food firms using firm-level census data between 1998 and 2007 (174,940 sample food firms). We test for within-firm, within-industry, and vertical effects. We find that the effect of FDI on the productivity of Chinese food firms depends significantly on the type of FDI and its countries of origin. FDI from non-HMT (Hong Kong, Macaw and Taiwan) regions can improve the productivity of the invested firm, and also increases the productivity of domestic food firms through vertical industry linkages. However, domestic food firms may be crowded out by non-HMT investment in the same industry. HMT investment can generate positive within-industry productivity spillovers, but negative vertical spillovers. Our findings have immediate implications for policymakers in China, as well as for governments of less developed countries that are formulating foreign investment policies.

African Swine Fever broke out in China in August 2018 and has caused a substantial loss to China’s hog industry. Pork is the dominant meat in the Chinese diet with its price being a critical component of China’s Consumer Price Index. In 2019, large increases in the pork price caused by the sharp reduction in pork supply incentivized the government to suppress the price by subsidizing large-scale hog farms. With an updated estimation of China’s meat demand, we argue that the ongoing policy interventions may not be the most efficient for achieving short-run reductions in the pork price. Subsidizing the production of chicken, a major substitute for pork and currently accounting for a relatively small share of meat consumption in China, could help suppress the pork price faster and at lower government costs. We estimate price dynamics and compute consumer surplus of multiple subsidy plans over a 30-month window from the third quarter of 2019 to the last quarter of 2021. Simulation outcomes suggest that allocating some subsidies from hog to chicken farms is likely to benefit consumers, producers, and the government. Our novel proposal of expanding production of a substitute meat to help lower the pork price after a large loss of the hog stock may be useful to other countries that suffer or may suffer from severe livestock losses due to animal epidemics.

“All natural” food labels have become increasingly popular in recent decades. Labels may communicate to consumers a level of food quality above that of unlabeled products. In April 2011, a national...

Consumers are sensitive to food safety problems such as the outbreak of animal diseases. This paper examined the impact on consumers’ consumption behavior from information about food safety reported in news media. Taking avian influenza outbreak as an example, we counted articles published in major newspapers in the United States between 2001 and 2009, and included variables constructed based on these counts in an Inverse Almost ideal Demand model using monthly market consumption data on chicken, duck, other poultry, beef, and pork to estimate the impact of news on actual demand of these meats. We found that U.S. consumers would reduce their poultry demand and substitute by livestock meats when such news is reported by media negatively. This effect is boundary-unconstrained, i.e., the U.S. poultry market suffers irrespective to the country of the disease outbreak. However, the magnitude of the effect is lower if the outbreak is from overseas.

• Consumer preference for food intrinsic and extrinsic attributes in the food service sector

With the rapid expansion of China's middle class and the increasing Western cultural influence, the wine consumption in China has experienced a remarkable growth in recent decades. A quantitative study on market power of Chinese wine firms is conducted to assess the competition structure of this industry and to provide economic insights into effective strategies for existing and prospective firms. In this paper, we employ an econometric model to estimate markups using a firm-level dataset collected from the Chinese wine industry allowing price heterogeneity. The results suggest that there exists an oligopolistic structure in the Chinese wine industry, and geographical region has significant impact on the market power. We also provide discussions on future directions of market structure for domestic as well as multinational firms. [EconLit citations: Q13, L11, L66].

Food and health have always been important issues for the Chinese economy. The recent coronavirus outbreak has become a global concern and has potential impacts on food supply and consumption, agri...

Although public interest in sustainable and safer products have steadily risen worldwide, research has shown a difference between consumer&rsquo, s willingness to purchase, and actual purchasing behavior, for which two main explanations exist, including a lack of accessibility and a poor knowledge of related attributes. Fortunately, the emergence of online food markets may improve this situation through convenient accessibility to sustainable food and detailed description about sustainability labels. This research uses a hedonic price analysis to compare the price premiums for the sustainability attribute in Chinese online and offline markets, using edible oil as a case. The specific objective is to test the different values of a sustainable attribute, a green food label, in two types of markets. Results show that the green food attribute could gain a price premium in the online market but not in the offline market, indicating the importance of the online channel for sustainable food sale in China. A big price mechanism difference between online and offline markets is also found, with regard to attributes of production method, variety, place of origin, packaging, and discount. These results provide a guide for firms&rsquo, pricing strategies in online and offline markets.

This paper reviews the changes in Shuanghui’s operations after the Smithfield acquisition as well as transformations in China’s pork industries. As income grows and diets change, there has been an increasing demand for high-quality pork and more processed pork products. However, China’s swine and pork industries are still at an early stage of development as evidenced by the low market concentration, intensive use of labour, a proliferation of intermediaries, and low levels of technology. Bounded by the established consumer preferences for freshness and the status quo in the midstream and upstream segments, Shuanghui is in a slow process of upgrading its domestic operations with Smithfield’s leading brands, import of chilled and frozen pork, advanced technologies, and the vertically integrated business model after this acquisition. In particular, it remains unclear whether Shuanghui can follow Smithfield’s experience to establish stable and safe hog supplies by multiplying self-owned hog farms, maintain and expand its current contracts with large-scale commercial hog farms, or rely more on global sourcing of pork primarily from the U.S.

Sustainable food consumption and production play an increasingly important role in improving food security and quality in the food system worldwide. Consumers’ food consumption patterns in China, a rapidly emerging economy with the largest population and one of the largest consumer markets in the world, significantly influence the structure of global trade flows and the sustainable ecosystem and environment. In this paper, we assess the emerging demand for imported wild and sustainable Alaskan salmon fillet and varietal parts in China’s market through consumers’ stated purchase intentions for the products. We use an ordered logit model to link consumers’ purchase intentions with potential influencing factors and identify important factors, including consumers’ consumption habits, perceptions, and social demographic characteristics. Due to differences between western and Chinese consumers on how different parts of fish are consumed, seemingly low-value salmon heads and bones may carry significant value if being imported and sold to Chinese consumers. We believe that our study is an important step in helping to build a sustainable business model, thereby creating a win-win situation for both the importing and exporting countries in order to allocate resources efficiently, feed people with healthy food, avoid food waste, and fulfill the economic value of products.

Houses are the primary asset for Chinese rural families. However, dramatically increasing frequency and severity of floods have caused significant loss in rural houses recently, and there is generally no insurance available. In this article, we investigate the rural residents’ willingness to buy insurance according to a national survey. The results show that there exists a strong need for flood insurance in rural China, and the influencing factors in the insurance demand include the recent frequency of floods, income, and past experience with lack of flood insurance. Policy suggestions for flood insurance are provided for the insurance industry and Chinese government.

In the wake of the supermarket revolution, consumer concerns over food safety in China have resulted in an accelerated change towards the procurement of food products from modern retail channels. We employ discrete choice experiments to assess consumer preferences for food quality attributes across various retail channels using primary data from Beijing, China. Results suggest that consumer willingness to pay for food safety is retail channel invariant, while preferences for organic and Green Food certification are product and retail channel specific. We find evidence of emerging consumer preferences for animal welfare attributes. Implications for food retail managers and agribusinesses are discussed.

In recent years, Asia has emerged as an important supplier of food to Western countries. In this study, we focus on shrimp, a major aquaculture commodity, to evaluate consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for enhanced food safety, use of antibiotics and eco-friendly practices used in producing shrimp in the presence of country-of-origin labelling. Specifically, this research assesses the effects of news headlines regarding product safety, as information shocks on U.S. consumer demand. Consumers were found to have a mean willingness-to-pay of $7.81 per pound of shrimp with an enhanced safety characteristic from the United States, $0.94 for the same type of shrimp from China and $2.43 for similar shrimp from Thailand. Consumers had a WTP for the absence of antibiotics in the production of U.S. shrimp of $7.31 and were only willing to pay for an eco-friendly attribute on domestically produced shrimp. Media headlines were found to have a statistically significant effect on consumer preferences and WTP for product characteristics. Food policy and international agribusiness implications of our findings are discussed.

Recent years have seen considerable interest in the impact of contract farming on farmers in developing countries, motivated out of belief that contract farming spurs transition to modern agriculture. In this article, we provide a thorough review of the empirical literature on contract farming in both developed and developing countries, using China as a special case of the latter. We pay careful attention to broad implications of this research for economic development. We first find empirical studies consistently support the positive contribution of contract farming to production and supply chain efficiency. We also find that most empirical studies identify a positive and significant effect of contract farming on farmer welfare, yet are often unable to reach consistent conclusions as to significant correlates of contract participation.

The increasing share of imported food in developed countries, such as the U.S. and European Union countries, poses new challenges for food safety and quality regulators. China, as the world's biggest food producer, has the fastest growing share of fish and shellfish exports to these countries. While there have been an increasing number of studies conducted on consumer demand for various food product attributes, little research has focused on producer behavior, and studies on Chinese food producers are especially absent in the literature. The objective of this study is to assess Chinese aquaculture producers' willingness-to-change (WTC) and adopt certain production practices related to food safety. Producer preferences for enhanced food safety measures, and sustainable/eco-friendly production practices are assessed using a choice experiment. Primary data was collected in the leading aquaculture producing provinces of southern China. The average net income per farmer of our sample was 81,286 RMB/year of which approximately 72% originated from their aquaculture operation. Derived WTC estimates from a random parameters logit model suggest that the representative Chinese producer would require a 2.49% premium per jin of fish to adopt enhanced food safety practices such as those required for China GAP, and No Public Harm voluntary certifications and they would accept a 3.22% discount before being indifferent between having an antibiotic-free facility and using antibiotics. WTC estimates of sustainable eco-friendly practices and verification by various entities were also assessed. A latent class model (LCM) is used to segregate producers into groups with similar underlying characteristics to develop policies to improve producer practices and ultimately product safety and quality.

This study provides an economics assessment of various food safety measures in China. A choice experiment approach is used to elicit Chinese consumer preferences for various food safety attributes using data from a 2008 urban consumer survey. An alternative welfare calculation is used to model aggregate market impacts of select food safety measures. Our results show that the largest welfare gains are found in the current government-run certification program. The implementation of a third-party certification system, a traceability network and a product label would generate significant value and would help reduce current system inefficiencies in China. This study builds on previous research and provides an alternative approach for calculating consumer valuation of safety and quality attributes that can be used to estimate aggregate economic and welfare impacts.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore Chinese food safety issues by analysing select incidents within he Chinese agricultural marketing system. Design/methodology/approach – A marketing utility framework is utilized to discuss some of the major food safety incidents in China and potential solutions are explored. Findings – The paper finds that food safety issues arise from problems of asymmetric information which leads to the profit seeking behaviour of agents distorting rather than enhancing the creation of one of the four types or marketing utility (time, form, place and possession). Additionally, structural causes found within the Chinese food marketing system have contributed to the food safety problems. Research limitations/implications – This is not an empirical research with numerical data. Originality/value – This study is one of the first to address Chinese food safety problems from an agricultural marketing utility perspective. Key anecdotes are used to support the claims made in this study.

The increasing share of imported food in developed countries, such as the U.S. and European Union countries, poses new challenges for food safety and quality regulators. China as the world's biggest food producer has the fastest growing share of fish and shellfish exports to these countries. While there have been an increasing number of studies conducted on consumer demand for various food product attributes, little research has been focused on producer behavior, and studies on Chinese food producers are especially absent in the literature. The objective of this study is to assess Chinese aquaculture producers' willingness-to-change (WTC) and adopt certain production practices related to food safety. Producer preferences for enhanced food safety measures, and sustainable/eco-friendly production practices are assessed using a choice experiment. Primary data was collected in the leading aquaculture producing provinces of southern China. The average net income per farmer of our sample was 81,286 RMB/year of which approximately 72% originated from their aquaculture operation. Derived WTC estimates from a random parameters logit model suggest that the representative Chinese producer would require a 2.49% premium per jin of fish to adopt enhanced food safety practices such as those required for China GAP, and No Public Harm voluntary certifications and they would accept a 3.22% discount before being indifferent between having an antibiotic-free facility and using antibiotics. WTC estimates of sustainable eco-friendly practices and verification by various entities were also assessed. A latent class model (LCM) is used to segregate producers into group with similar underlying characteristics to develop policies to improve producer practices and ultimately product safety and quality.

The increasing share of imported food in the United States, coupled with highly publicized incidents of food contamination and adulteration in Asia, particularly China, is posing new challenges for consumers and food safety regulators. In this study, we focus on imported shrimp and tilapia, to evaluate consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for enhanced food safety, use of antibiotics, and eco-friendly environmental practices. Results show that U.S. consumers were willing-to-pay more for enhanced food safety, followed by the use of no antibiotics and environmental friendly production practices. American consumers in our sample were found to have a higher WTP for domestic products and placed more trust on U.S. government verification of product attributes followed by third-party certification.

In this paper, we study three issues related to US consumers' attitude about food safety for imported food. First, we investigate the relationship between U.S. consumers' perception and their actual behavior when purchasing seafood, and find a conflict in that many consumers think the food country of original label (COOL) is extremely important but they don't check the label when purchasing. Second, we assess factors that affect consumers' attitude toward country of origin information and safety certification labeling. We find demographic characteristics matter, in that female and less educated individuals care more about both kinds of labels than their counterparts. We also find older people tend to care more about COOL while consumers with higher consumption care more about the labels explicit on food safety. Finally, we address consumers' perception on the level of safety associated with fish and shellfish products produced in six major U.S. seafood importing countries. They trust Canada much more than Indonesia, Ecuador, Thailand, China and Viet Nam, and quality certification labels help to improve the trust on Indonesia and Ecuador but not much on the other countries.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a big picture of the current context of Chinese economy, the government policies on agriculture, and the role of agricultural risks and risk management against this background.Design/methodology/approachThe new Chinese economic challenges are laid out upfront. Relevant agricultural issues are then provided, with statistics; next, risks and risk management topics are introduced and controversial issues in agriculture are discussed. Relevant policies reflected in the State Council's No. 1 documents in both 2012 and 2013 are introduced and filled in each section.FindingsThe Chinese economy may slow down after decades of fast development. Food security is still a top priority, even with the income rise. Increased labor cost may transform Chinese agriculture from the traditional labor intensive field management into a modern agriculture characterized by high input use and larger scale.Research limitations/implicationsThe research implication is directing economists focusing on Chinese agricultural risks to grasp the opportunity of the Chinese government investing in agricultural research and development, to look more broadly, to involve multidisciplinary research with the natural sciences, and to refer to the situation of modern agriculture.Practical implicationsThere are some policy implications. Further liberalization of land ownership is called for, as is the development of infrastructure.Originality/valueThis paper addresses the objectives in putting agricultural risks and risk management into the overall big picture of the Chinese economy and government policies.

Weather index-based crop insurance offers farmers a way to mitigate production risk without the moral hazard, adverse selection and high administrative cost problems that plague conventional loss-based crop insurance. This is especially important for developing countries that lack government subsidised crop insurance programmes and high quality yield records. In this paper, we analyse weather-based crop insurance theoretically and provide an empirical application to South African maize producers. We examine several weather indices, investigate the farmers’ demand with and without loaded premiums, and evaluate the benefits of weather index-based insurance to farmers with alternative risk preferences. Results show that the risk management efficiency of a contract has direct bearing on how well the index describes the production variability, especially a combination of two weather variables tend to describe production risk better than any single variable.

Introduction and Aim Heroin dependence is a serious health burden in Australia. Opioid substitution treatment (OST) has been delivered in Australian community pharmacies since 1985. The effectiveness of pharmacy-based OST is evident and the demand is increasing; however, the participation rate of community pharmacies is low, with over 60% non-providers. While previous Australian studies have focused on perspectives of community pharmacists providing the service, the views of non-providers have not yet been explored. This study aimed to further investigate factors influencing pharmacists' participation in provision of OST in the community pharmacy setting in New South Wales, Australia. Design and Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 35 NSW community pharmacists (20 providers, 15 non-providers). Transcripts of interviews were thematically analysed. Results Factors influencing non-providers were mainly stigma and fear, the nature of an opt-in scheme, professionals' moral responsibilities, lack of awareness and knowledge, disproportionate distribution of clients and lack of financial support for OST clients. Providers were motivated by positive attitudes, functional relationships with OST clients/stakeholders, professional satisfaction and financial rewards. Recommendations to improve participation in OST services were offered by both groups. Discussion and Conclusion This study explored views from both OST providers and non-providers, revealing a number of previously undocumented barriers that affect the uptake of OST provision in New South Wales community pharmacies. There were also profound ethical issues raised for consideration. These findings may help inform future policies aimed at encouraging pharmacists' provision of OST, to address the unmet needs of the ever-increasing number of heroin-dependent clients in the community. [Chaar BB, Wang H, Day CA, Hanrahan JR, Winstock AR, Fois R. Factors influencing pharmacy services in opioid substitution treatment. Drug Alcohol Rev2013;32:426–434]

The relationship between agricultural taxation and production efficiency has been thoroughly explored for many countries. Recently, China has taken various measures including the rural taxation reform (RTR) to promote grain production and to increase farmer incomes. In this study, we investigate whether the Chinese policy of abolishing rural taxation has improved farm households’ incomes and affected their production decisions. Using household survey data obtained from three regions in China, we estimate the effect of the RTR on farmers’ income. Results show that the RTR has significantly improved farmers’ post-tax net income by 9.2% in Shandong, 16.9% in Shanxi and 16.8% in Zhejiang. These increments, mostly from farm income rather than from off-farm income, are much higher than the direct income increase from the tax savings. In addition, we examine the dynamic impact of farmers’ net income, and find that the RTR has a sustained positive income effect in Shandong and Shanxi, whereas its positive effect in Zhejiang appears temporary. We also examine farmers’ production responses to the RTR. Results show that farmers in the three regions respond in different ways: farmers in Shandong significantly increase their labour input, farmers in Zhejiang increase intermediate inputs, whereas Shanxi farmers augment their intermediate inputs and enlarge their crop acreage. It appears that the farmers’ responses to the taxation reform vary due to the agronomic and economic factors in these three regions, suggesting that diverse post-RTR supplemental policies should be implemented in different regions.

At the new release of the 2016 Number One Document of the Chinese Central Government, public attention is drawn to food, agricultural, and rural issues facing China. The 1.4 billion population of C...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate contract farming in China, using vegetable production as a case. Specifically, the authors analyze farmers' contract decisions for different types of contracts, their contract compliance behaviors, and their profitability affected by the contracts both analytically and empirically.Design/methodology/approachThe authors assume growers with alternative risk preferences make the contract decisions to maximize their expected utilities, under exogenous market price risks and contract terms determined by the processor or wholesaler. Both fixed price and floating price contracts are analyzed. Two surveys of 185 and 85 farm households, respectively, are obtained in Shandong province in 2010, and econometric analyses with both Logit and least square regressions are conducted.FindingsThe results indicate that the determining factors for contract farming are related to farmers' risk attitude, gender, yield, farm size and labor availability. However, contrary to the common belief that contracts are a risk management tool for risk averse farmers, the risk lovers tend to use contract farming instead of risk averters. Female household heads and farms with more labors tend not to use contracts, but larger farms with more acreage are more likely to contract. These suggest Chinese farmers' primary motivation of contracting is not market price risk management, but rather seeking better offers and marketing transaction cost reduction.Originality/valueThe authors believe that this is the first econometric study to analyze contract farming allowing different types of contracts in China. The scenarios include cases without contracts, with fixed price contracts, and with floating price contracts, where the contract price changes to reflect the market price, a very unique yet popular situation in China. Each of the cases is also considered under the situation whether default is possible.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explain the factors affecting crop insurance purchases by farmers in Inner Mongolia, China.Design/methodology/approachA survey of farmers in Inner Mongolia, China, is undertaken. Selected variables are used to explain crop insurance purchases, and a probit regression model is used for the analysis.FindingsResults show that a number of variables explain crop insurance purchases by farmers in Inner Mongolia. Of the eight variables in the model, seven are statistically significant. The eight variables used to explain crop insurance purchases are: knowledge of crop insurance, previous purchases of crop insurance, trust of the crop insurance company, amount of risk taken on by the farmer, importance of low crop insurance premium, government as the main information source for crop insurance, role of head of village, and number of family members working in the city.Research limitations/implicationsA possible limitation of the study is that data includes only one geographic area, Inner Mongolia, China, and so results may not always fully generalize to all regions of China, for all situations.Practical implicationsCrop insurance has been recently expanded in China, and the information from this study should be useful for insurance companies and government policy makers that are attempting to increase the adoption rate of crop insurance in China.Social implicationsCrop insurance may be a useful approach for stabilizing the agricultural sector, and for increasing agricultural production and food security in China.Originality/valueThis is the first study to quantitatively model the factors affecting crop insurance purchases by farmers in Inner Mongolia, China.

The diet of urban Chinese consumers has changed drastically over the past twenty years, due in part to rising incomes and changing lifestyles. Food consumption has shifted away from grains and toward higher-quality calories from animal proteins and aquaculture products. Dairy demand in urban China has shown remarkable growth in the past decade, driven by mutually reinforcing factors, including rising incomes, government promotion of dairy products, changing urban lifestyles, and the development of more sophisticated marketing channels (Fuller et al. 2006). China’s dairy production has surged from just over 10 million metric tons in 2001 to an expected production level of nearly 48 million metric tons by 2013 (Woolsey, Zhang, and Zhang 2010). Most notable has been the rise in demand for ultra-high temperature (UHT) pasteurized fluid milk among urban consumers in recent years, with a 50% sales increase in 2009 alone (Fuller et al. 2006; Wang, Mao, and Gale 2008; Woolsey, Zhang, and Zhang 2010).

Food safety issues often arise from problems of asymmetric information between consumers and suppliers with regards to product-specific attributes. Severe food safety scandals were observed recently in China that not only caused direct economic and life loss 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 analyze consumers’ concerns over food safety. In this paper we measure consumer preferences for select food safety attributes in pork and take their 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. A statistical sample of 6,720 observations is obtained from a choice experiment administered in seven major Chinese metropolitan cities. Our results suggest that Chinese consumers have the highest willingness-to-pay for a government certification program, followed by a traceability system, third party certification and a product-specific information label. The results of this study call upon the direct involvement of the Chinese government in the food safety system. A more strict monitoring system will not only improve consumer welfare in the short-run but also restore consumers’ trust leading to a social welfare increase in the long run.

Migrant workers have become a major element of the labor force in Chinese cities, making important contributions to the economy while forming a socially disadvantaged group. Existing research on the relationship between the level of nutrition and health and income in China mainly focuses on farmers living in rural areas. Based on a Mincer equation and using a survey in Beijing, this paper examines the relationship between migrant workers' nutrition and health levels and their monthly incomes. We find that the nutrition intake and the body mass index have positive effects on income while duration of illness and daily working hours have negative effects. These conclusions imply that the Chinese Government should put more emphasis on improving migrant workers' well-being, including offering educational programs on nutrition and health, and enhancing medical insurance and the old-age insurance system.

PurposeSince 1999, China has undergone reform of its healthcare system. City‐based social health insurance (SHI) is the primary form of current health insurance, supplemented by various commercial health insurance programs. The rural new cooperative medical system (NCMS) was introduced in 1993 and extended to cover the whole of rural China in 2003.Design/methodology/approachThe paper developed a theoretical model for consumer demand of medical services and health insurance based on an expected utility framework with a two‐stage decision under uncertainty. The model is then applied to current health insurance systems in China for urban citizens and rural residents separately. Least square and logistic regressions are employed.FindingsThe major results are that although the factors driving the decisions on health insurance participation are basically the same for rural and urban citizens, the participation levels are quite different. The major difference is that urban SHI has higher coverage and urban citizens have higher income, resulting in a much larger urban medical expenditure.Practical implicationsThe empirical analysis reveals that health insurance programs have played an important role in the healthcare expenditure for urban residents, while the NCMS has not made a significant impact towards increasing the ability of rural residents to seek more medical services, based on data at 2004.Originality/valueThis is the first paper employing a health production theory on China's new urban and rural healthcare programs.

In this study, the impact of Chinese rural taxation reform (RTR) on farm household income is investigated, using panel data collected from nearly 1,000 farm households in fifteen villages in the Yangtze river delta (YRD) area between 1995 and 2005. The results from fixed-effect regression show that RTR had a significant impact, increasing farmer income by 6.82 percent. This increase is much more than the direct income increase brought about by an exemption from the agricultural tax. When the dynamic impact of RTR on farm household income was examined, it was found that the most significant income increase occurred in the first three years after the execution of the new tax policy.

A utility maximization model is used to assess alternative risk management portfolios of Pacific Northwest non‐irrigated grain producers using three rotational practices. Risk management tools include hedging with wheat futures, yield insurance, two revenue insurance products (with and without price replacement), and government programs under the 2002 Food Security and Rural Investment (FSRI) Act. Government programs account for the primary risk management value of all the analyzed portfolios. The revenue insurance product with price replacement is preferred when available, and yield insurance is preferred over revenue insurance without price replacement. Hedging is not extensively utilized unless government programs are eliminated.