Consumers' Trust in Government and Their Attitudes Towards Genetically Modified Food: Empirical Evidence from China

Understanding the determinants of consumer's acceptance towards genetically modified food (GMF) is critical important for future biotechnology development. Among many factors, consumers' trust in government has increasingly received great attentions in the literature. However, accurately quantifying impact of consumers' trust in government on their GMF attitudes is difficult because researchers often encounter many difficulties in empirical estimation. Overall goal of this study is to empirically quantify the impact of consumers' trust in government on their attitudes towards GMF in China. An econometric model on consumer's trust in government and their attitude towards GMF is developed and estimated based on a unique data set collected by the authors in 2002 and 2003 in 11 cities of China. This study shows that the consumers' acceptance of GMF is high in urban China. Among many factors, consumers' trust in government is found to have significantly positive impact on their acceptance of GMFs, which has important implications for any government who wants to pursue the development of GMFs. Our study also shows that fail to consider the endogeneity of consumers trust in government will lead to serious underestimation of its impacts on consumers' acceptance of GMFs. This is, as the best of our knowledge, the first study on the impact of consumers' trust in government with consideration the endogenous problems that are often embodied in the consumer perception studies.Trust in government, Genetically modified food, Consumer's attitude, Acceptance, China, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Q13, Q18, O13,

China’s agricultural prospects and challenges: Report on scenario simulations until 2030 with the Chinagro welfare model covering national, regional and county level

The report describes prospects and challenges for Chinese agriculture until 2030 under different scenarios, using the Chinagro welfare model. A scenario is defined as a coherent set of assumptions about exogenous driving forces (farm land, population, non-agricultural growth, world prices etc.), derived from the literature and own assessments. Under these assumptions, simulations with the Chinagro model analyze the price-based interaction between the supply behavior of farmers, the demand behavior of consumers and the determination of trade flows by merchants. The outcomes from the Baseline scenario seem reassuring in that foreign imports remain moderate relative to China’s size, though quite large as fraction of world trade. It would be possible to feed people as well as animals without excessive imports. There is even a potential for significant export flows of vegetables and fruits. Regarding concerns, the trends in per capita agricultural value added are problematic, because they stay in all regions behind per capita value added outside agriculture, albeit that they are rising steadily. This leads to growing disparity in per capita incomes within and across regions. The mounting environmental pressure from fertilizer losses and unused manure surpluses is another cause of concern. The second scenario, the Trade liberalization scenario, appears to hurt farm incomes more than it benefits them and to raise the gap with non-agriculture, also because food becomes cheaper in urban areas. Hence, it highlights the difficult choice between economic efficiency and poverty alleviation that agricultural policy makers often face. The High income growth scenario reinforces the national food self-sufficiency result of the baseline simulation. Even with meat demand higher than under the baseline, levels of imports remain manageable. The High R&D scenario shows that a considerable reduction in dependence on agricultural imports is possible. However, a substantial part of the gains will accrue to consumers rather than to farmers, due to price reductions. Finally, the Enhanced irrigation scenario shows outcomes similar to those of the high R&D scenario. Here also the agricultural trade balance improves and consumer welfare improves, but farmers have to cope with drops in prices, and those who do not benefit from land improvement, only experience losses through falling prices. The present report is written at the onset of the CATSEI-project that will analyze policy packages with more specificity and detail after implementing the following model improvements. First, the impact of China’s imports and exports on world markets will be represented explicitly. Second, the developments outside agriculture in rural areas will be accounted for endogenously, particularly to represent farm revenue from off-farm employment. Third, the trade and transportation margins between farm-gates and markets will be made dependent on the relative flexibility of the actors (farmers, processors, traders) along the chain. Finally, the various techniques to identify more efficient and more sustainable use of scarce water and nutrients and to address health risks will appear more explicitly

Balancing water resources conservation and food security in China

China’s economic growth is expected to continue into the next decades, accompanied by sustained urbanization and industrialization. The associated increase in demand for land, water resources, and rich foods will deepen the challenge of sustainably feeding the population and balancing agricultural and environmental policies. We combine a hydrologic model with an economic model to project China’s future food trade patterns and embedded water resources by 2030 and to analyze the effects of targeted irrigation reductions on this system, notably on national agricultural water consumption and food self-sufficiency. We simulate interprovincial and international food trade with a general equilibrium welfare model and a linear programming optimization, and we obtain province-level estimates of commodities’ virtual water content with a hydrologic model. We find that reducing irrigated land in regions highly dependent on scarce river flow and nonrenewable groundwater resources, such as Inner Mongolia and the greater Beijing area, can improve the efficiency of agriculture and trade regarding water resources. It can also avoid significant consumption of irrigation water across China (up to 14.8 km3/y, reduction by 14%), while incurring relatively small decreases in national food self-sufficiency (e.g., by 3% for wheat). Other researchers found that a national, rather than local, water policy would have similar effects on food production but would only reduce irrigation water consumption by 5%

Consumers' Trust in Government and Their Attitudes Towards Genetically Modified Food: Empirical Evidence from China

Understanding the determinants of consumer's acceptance towards genetically modified food (GMF) is critical important for future biotechnology development. Among many factors, consumers' trust in government has increasingly received great attentions in the literature. However, accurately quantifying impact of consumers' trust in government on their GMF attitudes is difficult because researchers often encounter many difficulties in empirical estimation. Overall goal of this study is to empirically quantify the impact of consumers' trust in government on their attitudes towards GMF in China. An econometric model on consumer's trust in government and their attitude towards GMF is developed and estimated based on a unique data set collected by the authors in 2002 and 2003 in 11 cities of China. This study shows that the consumers' acceptance of GMF is high in urban China. Among many factors, consumers' trust in government is found to have significantly positive impact on their acceptance of GMFs, which has important implications for any government who wants to pursue the development of GMFs. Our study also shows that fail to consider the endogeneity of consumers trust in government will lead to serious underestimation of its impacts on consumers' acceptance of GMFs. This is, as the best of our knowledge, the first study on the impact of consumers' trust in government with consideration the endogenous problems that are often embodied in the consumer perception studies

Linking Small Scale Farmers in China with the International Markets: A Case of Apple Export Chains

This study describes how governance mechanisms were formed that link small-scale apple farmers in China with export markets. These institutional innovations have improved the efficiency of price transmission and generated higher profit margins for various actors in the supply chain, in particular for small-scale farmers. Chinese apple exports are highly coordinated through ongoing long term loyal network relationships and vertical integration. Relevant policy implications and further challenges are discussed in the conclusion