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Willingness to pay for higher environmental standards for avocado production in Great Barrier Reef catchments

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posted on 2024-06-24, 02:22 authored by John RolfeJohn Rolfe, Jeremy De ValckJeremy De Valck, D Rajapaksa, Nicole FlintNicole Flint, Megan StarMegan Star, Delwar AkbarDelwar Akbar
There is substantial evidence that consumers prefer food to be produced at higher environmental standards. There are two main options for improving demand signals for environmentally sensitive production through markets: ecolabels, where consumers can choose to buy differentiated products, and environmental standards, where consumers can opt for higher standards at higher costs. Yet there is limited information about the extent to which consumers would be willing to pay extra and support these options. In this study we apply three separate parallel non-market valuation experiments (best worst scaling, contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments) in a survey of Australian households to identify the level of consumer support for avocados to be produced at higher standards. We estimate both the willingness to pay and the proportion of consumers prepared to support ecolabelling and environmental standard approaches, correcting for quantity changes and factors affecting support. Our case study application is avocado production in catchments of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where we find a similar willingness to pay per unit for five star water quality improvements under the ecolabelling option with a discrete choice experiment ($0.22/unit) compared to the environmental standards option assessed with contingent valuation ($0.22/unit). The key insight from our work is that assessing the quantum of consumer support is more important than assessing the price premiums, and that more consumers will support universal higher environmental standards than ecolabelled options.

Funding

Category 2 - Other Public Sector Grants Category

History

Volume

110

Start Page

1

End Page

11

Number of Pages

11

eISSN

1873-6343

ISSN

0950-3293

Publisher

Elsevier

Additional Rights

CC BY 4.0

Language

en

Peer Reviewed

  • Yes

Open Access

  • Yes

Acceptance Date

2023-07-05

Author Research Institute

  • Centre for Regional Economics and Supply Chain (RESC)

Era Eligible

  • Yes

Journal

Food Quality and Preference

Article Number

104940