Perceptions of selected aquaculture practices: Shanghai residents’ views on water and feed quality

The paper examines importance Shanghai consumers attach to four issues associated with the production of aquatic products. Three potential problems involve quality of production inputs, i.e., water quality, the use of feed without medication, and the use of only natural ingredients in feed. The fourth issue was the importance to consumers of releasing water from fish farms without treatment to surface water bodies. The estimation of four specified equations uses 394 observations and the ordered logit technique. Results consistently show the increasing importance of all issues as the educational attainment level of respondents’ increases. The presence of children is associated with importance of feed quality, but has the opposite effect on the importance of releasing untreated water. Age also increases the importance of feed quality, but decreases the importance of releasing untreated water to rivers and the sea. Male as compared to women respondents view the issues as less important. Overall, the results are consistent with expectations of better educated or older consumers attaching more importance to presented issues associated with aquatic production, except for the unexpected effect of child presence in a household on treatment of water.