QUANTIFYING THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC INCENTIVES ON FIRMS' FOOD SAFETY RESPONSIVENESS: THE CASE OF RED MEAT AND POULTRY PROCESSING SECTOR IN CANADA

This study assesses quantitatively the economic incentives for firms to adopt food safety controls and the potential impact of a number of firm and market-specific characteristics on this behavior, focusing on the red meat and poultry-processing sector in Canada.food safety controls, economic incentives, adoption, food processing sectors in Canada, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Assessing Consumer Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Food Quality: The Case of Consumption of Tetra-Packed Fresh Milk in Sri Lanka

The objectives of this study are (i) to assess consumer perceptions on fresh milk that are stored in tetra-packs, and (ii) to determine the relationship between the perceptions and the socio-economic characteristics of the consumers. Using Caswell's four subsets of food quality (i.e. food safety, nutrition, value, and packaging) two indices, namely Mean Attribute Score (MAS) and a Food Quality Responsive Index (FQRI) were developed, which describe how important each of these four subsets and various attributes included in each subset for a consumer to be "loyal" with fresh milk in a tetra-pack instead of spending that part of money on close substitutes. A sample of 664 consumers were randomly selected and interviewed using a structured questionnaire at 10 different marketplaces in the Gampaha district in Sri Lanka from April to May in 2005. A subset of 100 consumers who consumes the product more frequently was considered for further analysis. Ordered Logistic Regression technique was used to estimate the coefficients of the model, to which five levels for the dependent variable was derived using the range of values of the FQRI. The results based on the MAS indicate that consumers tend to purchase tetra-pack considering the attributes included in value and package subsets mainly, including purity, appearance, size, convenience, and informational labeling etc. However, consumers did not believe that it enhances those attributes included in "food safety" and "nutritional" subsets. The statistical outcome shows that age, gender, level of education and income have a significant impact on this behavior. It suggests that the "market" can promote the consumption of fresh milk provided that a product complies with the safety and nutritional standards set by the "government".Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

VOLUNTARY ACTION OF A FIRM ON ENVIROMENT MANAGEMENT: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT ON SRI LANKAN FOOD PROCESSING FIRMS’ RESPONSE TO THE PRIVATE AND REGULATORY INCENTIVES

The effect of a set of private/market (i.e. financial implications, internal efficiency, market response) and public/non-market (i.e. government regulation, judiciary/legal system) incentives for a firm to act voluntarily on environmental quality is examined. It uses the levels of adoption of five solid waste management practices [SWMPs], namely: (1) 3R system; (2) Composting; (3) Good manufacturing practices; (4) Biogas unit, and (5) ISO 14000 by food processing sector in Sri Lanka in response to the prevalence of each incentive at the firm as the case. The data collected from 325 firms through in-depth interviews and site inspections and supported by a validated structured questionnaire were analyzed using the principles of Structural Equation Modeling. The “Analysis of Moment Structures” (AMOS) software was used to establish the relationships between the levels of adoption of SWMPs and the strength of each incentive. The results show that firms‟ response to environment is relatively low, i.e. 49.2% did not adopt a single practice, while only 28%, 12%, 7.4%, 3.1% and 0.3%, respectively, have adopted 1, 2, 3, 4 or all practices. Firms tend to adopt a higher number of SWMPs as the relative strength of an each incentive perceived by the decision maker of firm gets increases. Firms put a higher weight on the impact on regulation and legal system than the private incentives and the firm size has a substantial impact on its response to the environment. The results highlight the importance of bringing the current public regulatory regimes in developing countries like Sri Lanka towards co-regulation, which is practiced by developed countries like Australia and Canada to facilitate businesses to come up with own solutions for environmental and food quality, as the outcome of this analysis points out that firms‟ compliance to the recommended SWMP was not triggered satisfactorily by the private/voluntary action.Environment management, Food processing sector in Sri Lanka, Incentives, Regulation, Solid waste management, Voluntary adoption, Farm Management,

Effect of Urbanization on the Adoption of Environmental Management Systems in Canadian Agriculture

This study examines the extent to which farming practices have adjusted to the presence of urbanization in Canada. In particular, we compare the adoption rates for environmental management systems (EMSs) by farmers close to urbanized areas versus those in more rural, isolated regions. Using information from a national survey of 16,053 farmers, eight EMSs are considered. We find that farmers operating close to the urban milieu demonstrate strategic behavior by selecting more environmentally-friendly farm management practices to overcome social and regulatory pressures from such communities compared to those farmers that operate in rural communities.Farm Management,

An Economic Analysis on Spatial Integration of Regional Rice Markets in Sri Lanka

This paper examines the impact of price originated in the Central Rice Market (i.e. Colombo) on the price formation in a set of geographically dispersed Regional Rice Market in Sri Lanka (i.e. Anuradhapura, Kandy, Kurunegala, Nuwara-Eliya and Pollonnaruwa). It uses the monthly retail prices of rice in these markets from January 1996 to December 2003. The outcome of the analysis suggests that prices in these markets, irrespective of the whether they are surplus or deficit markets, were highly integrated both in the short-run and long-run perspectives. It has important implications for food and agricultural policy, i.e. government interventions at the Central Market such as food imports and export bans etc. are effective in Regional Markets

Factors Affecting the Adoption of Environmental Management Systems by Crop and Livestock Farms in Canada

This study examines, both qualitative and quantitatively, the motivation for crop, livestock, and mixed (both crop and livestock) farms in Canada to behave environmentally responsibly by adopting Environmental Management Systems (EMS) in the farm and the impact of a number of human capital, financial, farm structure, and social characteristics of the farmer and/or the farm on this behavior. It uses the data from 16,053 farms that responded to the Farm Environmental Management Survey conducted by Statistics Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in 2001, which collects information on implementation of EMS in the areas manure, fertilizer, pesticide, water, wildlife, grazing, and nutrient management in the farm.The outcome of analysis show that mixed farms have the highest adoption rates, in general, across the eight EMSs considered in this study, while livestock-only farms have the lowest. The most common EMSs used by all farms are fertilizer and pesticide management plans with the whole farm environmental plan as the least likely to be adopted. The results based on a regression analysis suggest that “young” and “rich” farmers with a “large” land extent tend to adopt as many as possible EMS, but the gender of the farmer does not show a significant impact on this behaviour. The level of urbanization and government regulation also affects significantly the level of adoption of EMSs. The analysis, as a whole, points out that even in the absence of “mandatory” national level policies to regulate agricultural farms in Canada, farmers show a tendency to adopt as much as possible EMS “voluntarily”, because of their own interests in the farming environment and/or motives originating from the market where they operated with

QUANTIFYING THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC INCENTIVES ON FIRMS' FOOD SAFETY RESPONSIVENESS: THE CASE OF RED MEAT AND POULTRY PROCESSING SECTOR IN CANADA

This study assesses quantitatively the economic incentives for firms to adopt food safety controls and the potential impact of a number of firm and market-specific characteristics on this behavior, focusing on the red meat and poultry-processing sector in Canada

Assessing Consumer Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Food Quality: The Case of Consumption of Tetra-Packed Fresh Milk in Sri Lanka

The objectives of this study are (i) to assess consumer perceptions on fresh milk that are stored in tetra-packs, and (ii) to determine the relationship between the perceptions and the socio-economic characteristics of the consumers. Using Caswell's four subsets of food quality (i.e. food safety, nutrition, value, and packaging) two indices, namely Mean Attribute Score (MAS) and a Food Quality Responsive Index (FQRI) were developed, which describe how important each of these four subsets and various attributes included in each subset for a consumer to be "loyal" with fresh milk in a tetra-pack instead of spending that part of money on close substitutes. A sample of 664 consumers were randomly selected and interviewed using a structured questionnaire at 10 different marketplaces in the Gampaha district in Sri Lanka from April to May in 2005. A subset of 100 consumers who consumes the product more frequently was considered for further analysis. Ordered Logistic Regression technique was used to estimate the coefficients of the model, to which five levels for the dependent variable was derived using the range of values of the FQRI. The results based on the MAS indicate that consumers tend to purchase tetra-pack considering the attributes included in value and package subsets mainly, including purity, appearance, size, convenience, and informational labeling etc. However, consumers did not believe that it enhances those attributes included in "food safety" and "nutritional" subsets. The statistical outcome shows that age, gender, level of education and income have a significant impact on this behavior. It suggests that the "market" can promote the consumption of fresh milk provided that a product complies with the safety and nutritional standards set by the "government"

Probing into the concept of ‘research for society’ to utilize as a strategy to synergize flexibility of a research institute working on eco-friendly commercial agriculture

Research and Development work on Commercial Agriculture (CA) has not sufficiently been taken into account of those transformations occurring in the country’s socio-economic and political environment, especially in the lens of decision-making and adoption of eco-friendly technologies in CA. It has been debated for a long time that well-set strategic policies and guidelines incorporated and agreed upon by all stakeholders into a model possess a vast potential to facilitate such decision-making towards the establishment of an eco-friendly CA. In the light of that, an illustrative model was built of which the logical paths were characterized by the variables stand for Key Performance Drives (KPD) to exhibit the state of societal acceptance of the research outputs on the concept of ‘Research for Society’ within the realm of functional flexibility of research institutes. The outputs and outcomes from such an exploratory analysis would facilitate research institutes working on CA to systematically adopt the ‘best-fit KPDs’ in research development and researches to be conceived from societal roots. Further, it would establish the true connections and dependencies between research, social awareness of research needs, and flexibility of research institutes to enhance the performance of the sector, through collected data on Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

VOLUNTARY ACTION OF A FIRM ON ENVIROMENT MANAGEMENT: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT ON SRI LANKAN FOOD PROCESSING FIRMS’ RESPONSE TO THE PRIVATE AND REGULATORY INCENTIVES

The effect of a set of private/market (i.e. financial implications, internal efficiency, market response) and public/non-market (i.e. government regulation, judiciary/legal system) incentives for a firm to act voluntarily on environmental quality is examined. It uses the levels of adoption of five solid waste management practices [SWMPs], namely: (1) 3R system; (2) Composting; (3) Good manufacturing practices; (4) Biogas unit, and (5) ISO 14000 by food processing sector in Sri Lanka in response to the prevalence of each incentive at the firm as the case. The data collected from 325 firms through in-depth interviews and site inspections and supported by a validated structured questionnaire were analyzed using the principles of Structural Equation Modeling. The “Analysis of Moment Structures” (AMOS) software was used to establish the relationships between the levels of adoption of SWMPs and the strength of each incentive. The results show that firms‟ response to environment is relatively low, i.e. 49.2% did not adopt a single practice, while only 28%, 12%, 7.4%, 3.1% and 0.3%, respectively, have adopted 1, 2, 3, 4 or all practices. Firms tend to adopt a higher number of SWMPs as the relative strength of an each incentive perceived by the decision maker of firm gets increases. Firms put a higher weight on the impact on regulation and legal system than the private incentives and the firm size has a substantial impact on its response to the environment. The results highlight the importance of bringing the current public regulatory regimes in developing countries like Sri Lanka towards co-regulation, which is practiced by developed countries like Australia and Canada to facilitate businesses to come up with own solutions for environmental and food quality, as the outcome of this analysis points out that firms‟ compliance to the recommended SWMP was not triggered satisfactorily by the private/voluntary action