The Effect of Altruism on Consumer Behavior in Japan: an Analysis on Rice Consumption using Scanner Data

Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

The effects of Information and Country of Origin on Japanese Olive Oil Consumer Selection

Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Viscous strengthening followed by slip weakening during frictional melting of chert

Pelagic chert is one of the major lithologies in accretionary complexes. Thus, frictional properties of chert at seismic slip rates are important for understanding of earthquake faulting in subduction zones. Here, we conducted high-velocity friction experiments on chert collected from the Jurassic accretionary complex in central Japan at a slip rate of 1.3 m/s and normal stresses of 5–13 MPa under room humidity conditions. The results show that initial slip weakening was followed by slip strengthening and subsequent second slip weakening toward a steady-state shear strength. Slip strengthening resulted from the formation of a silica-rich melt layer at lower melting temperatures than expected, which could be due to the presence of water in the illite-containing chert. The second slip weakening may be occurred due to a decrease in shear strain rate associated with the thickening of the melt layer

Transition of Consumer's Evaluation on Radioactive Contamination of Agricultural Products in Japan

On March 11, 2011, the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake wreaked havoc across northeastern Japan. The disaster caused a serious nuclear accident at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, which led to radiation leakage across northern and eastern Japan. Concerns over the radioactive contamination of food have grown among consumers since the accident. The Japanese government has issued certain legal guidelines for withdrawing food from markets. However, the demand for agricultural products from Fukushima Prefecture and neighboring areas decreased because of contamination concerns. In this paper, the research estimated consumer WTA of spinach from Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures using the data collected by internet surveys conducted from March 2011 to February 2012 of married women living in the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas. In the estimate this research divided the WTA into two parts: 1) health risk evaluation, the evaluation of products based on health risk from radioactive contamination, and 2) origin evaluation, based on the origin of products without contamination. The main results are as follows: (1) Consumer evaluations were different between the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas. The health risk evaluation was similar in both areas; however, the origin evaluation was different between the areas. (2) Level of contamination-WTA curves should be concave and the effect of the change of level of contamination diminishes gradually. The results indicate that consumers' evasion toward agricultural food with fear of contamination is still strong and sticky

Effect of agricultural extension on technology adoption by Palestinian farmers under Israeli occupation in the West Bank.

Even during the conflict, agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority has played an important role in agricultural development in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The Ministry of Agriculture of the Palestinian Authority provided the necessary agricultural extension services for Palestinian farmers affected by the Israeli settlements and Segregation Wall. Despite such importance of agricultural extension, few quantitative studies have examined its effect on Palestinian farmers. Therefore, the objective of this study was to quantify the effect of agricultural extension on technology adoption by Palestinian farmers for appropriate evaluation of the agricultural policies by the Palestinian Authority. The microdata of 79,446 agricultural holdings from the Agricultural Census 2010, which was the only microdata officially published and available at the time of this study, was used. Then, the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method was employed to mitigate the endogenous bias caused by self-selection by farmers in receiving the agricultural extension. The results showed that agricultural extension has positively and significantly affected the adoption of five technologies, namely improved crop varieties, chemical fertilizers, organic fertilizers, pesticides, and biological control. The estimated increase in the adoption rate of those technologies as the average treatment effects on the treated (ATT) by the nearest-neighbor matching method were by 7.1, 7.7, 5.4, 6.8, and 3.8 percentage points respectively. This study proved that agricultural extension promoted the adoption of those technologies even in the conflict. Therefore, agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority plays an important role in farming by Palestinian farmers. In order to maintain and improve farmers' livelihoods sustainably, it is necessary to continue the agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority in the future, considering the behavior of farmers

Flagship species and certification types affect consumer preferences for wildlife-friendly rice labels

Wildlife-friendly food labels are used to reduce information asymmetry and thus enhance agrobiodiversity conservation via marketing mechanisms. The labels make different claims depending on the certification requirements and conservation targets. However, little is known about consumer preferences for the different claims on the labels. Here, we evaluated consumer preferences for wildlife-friendly labels, with a focus on inputand outcome-based claims, by applying a choice experiment. Our results showed that consumers preferred fish labels with outcome claims to those with input claims; in contrast, consumer utility was not increased by outcome claims but by input claims in bird labels. The differences in preferences for certification requirements and for flagship species highlight the importance of strategic certification and labelling in encouraging people to conserve biodiversity. Our empirical evidence provides insights to balance biodiversity conservation with food security through conservation marketing