Consumers' Willingness to Pay a Price for Organic Beef Meat

The goal of this paper is to estimate the maximum price consumers are willing to pay (MPWTP) for organic beef meat. To this purpose, a theoretical and econometric approach is presented, based on the RUM model and on a Contingent Valuation technique. The results show that consumers' MPWTP is quite high, thus suggesting that organic beef meat might gain an appreciable market share. This is also an encouraging signal for prospective producers of organic meat, who might compensate the likely increase in production costs with a substantial premium for the new good.Organic meat, Willingness to pay, Double bounded probit, Consumer/Household Economics,

Willingness-to-pay in terms of price: an application to organic beef during and after the “mad cow” crisis

This paper aims at assessing consumers’ attitudes and willingness to pay for organic beef, an obvious alternative to regular beef in terms of safety, both immediately and at a longer term after the BSE crisis. It is based on two random telephone surveys in an Italian region, the first one conducted in 2001 (few months after the BSE crisis) and the second one in 2003. The analysis is based on an innovative methodology of contingent valuation, keeping into account the possibility for consumers to decide the quantity of their purchase when a price is proposed. The results show that though the effect of the BSE crisis weakened along with time distance, it left some permanent signs in consumers’ behaviour. The main conclusion is that the demand for organic beef reduced, but that in the meantime it became more inelastic.BSE, organic beef, willingness to pay, contingent valuation

Alternative Food Networks and short food chains: estimating the economic value of the participation in solidarity purchasing groups

Solidarity purchasing groups (SPGs) are common Alternative Food Networks in many towns in Italy. They are set up by groups of citizens who cooperate in order to buy food and other commonly used goods collectively and directly from producers, at a price that is fair to both parties. Within the group, the choice of the products and the farmers usually follow some guidelines related to the respect for the environment and the solidarity between the members of the group and the producers. Though still a small niche, SPGs are quite numerous and represent an interesting alternative to traditional setting of the food chain. The main motivation of members for participating in SPGs is arguably not a monetary one, i.e., it is not lower prices. Ethical motivations and environmental concerns are typically proposed among the goals of the groups. Nevertheless, the budget constraint is always operating, and it is of interest to measure how much the ethical and environmental motivations are able to overcome the budget constraint. This is tantamount to measure the value members attach to their participation to the SPG. Hence, the aim of this study was to estimate the value that group members attach to their participation. A stated preferences methodology was employed on a first sample of members of SPGs in Torino (Italy) and other neighbouring towns to estimate the value consumers buying in such groups attach to this particular channel, relative to the conventional supermarkets. Preliminary results show that SPG members do state a preference for buying with their organization rather than at a supermarket’s even when the prospected prices are substantially higher when purchasing through the SPG

Farm size and farmers environmental-friendly practices in livestock farming

Agriculture is among the major contributors to climate change, accounting for 24 percent of global CO2 emissions. Within the agricultural sector, livestock has a major role in greenhouse gas emissions. However, animal husbandry also affects the environment through nitrogen leaching to water tables from manure and slurry spread or stored on the soil. Both impacts can be diminished by appropriate practices, concerning the effluents storage and the modalities of their spreading on the soil. We investigate to what extent farmers adopt such practices and, more importantly, which are farm and farmers’ characteristics more conducive to the adoption of such practices. In particular, given the predominance of small farms in Italian agriculture, we assess the effect of farm size on the adoption of appropriate practices. To this purpose, we estimate ordered and binomial probit models of the adoption of virtuous practices from data of the 2010 Agricultural Census in Piedmont (Italy). The results suggest that, in general, larger farms are more likely to adopt virtuous practices, but the effect of farm size is nevertheless rather weak. Technical and cost issues linked to the physical conditions (location in hills and mountains) are apparently a relevant impediment to these practices