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Consumer Perceptions of Sustainable Farming Practices: A Best-Worst Scenario

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  • Sackett, Hillary M.
  • Shupp, Robert
  • Tonsor, Glynn

Abstract

Building on existing work evaluating food-attribute labels, we use data collected in 2010 from a national web-based survey of 1,002 households to examine consumer inferences and valuations of food products promoted as “sustainably produced.” A best-worst scale framework was implemented to identify how consumers define “sustainably produced” and their preferences for each of the sustainable farming practices considered. The results suggest that consumers perceive farm size and local production as important elements of sustainable agriculture while economic attributes exhibit a significant amount of heterogeneity, indicating segmentation in the sample and the potential for targeted marketing.

Suggested Citation

  • Sackett, Hillary M. & Shupp, Robert & Tonsor, Glynn, 2013. "Consumer Perceptions of Sustainable Farming Practices: A Best-Worst Scenario," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 1-16, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:155313
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.155313
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    Cited by:

    1. Sackett, Hillary & Shupp, Robert & Tonsor, Glynn, 2016. "Differentiating “Sustainable” From “Organic” And “Local” Food Choices: Does Information About Certification Criteria Help Consumers?," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 4(3), pages 1-15, July.
    2. AMADOU Zakou, 2020. "Which Sustainable Development Goals and Eco-challenges Matter Most to Niger s Farmers and Herdsmen? A Best Worst Scaling Approach," Agricultural Research & Technology: Open Access Journal, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 24(5), pages 168-174, July.
    3. Brooks, Kathleen R. & Ellison, Brenna, 2014. "Which Livestock Production Methods Matter Most to Consumers?," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 173517, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Brenna Ellison & Kathleen Brooks & Taro Mieno, 2017. "Which livestock production claims matter most to consumers?," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(4), pages 819-831, December.
    5. Elizabeth S. Byrd & Nicole J. Olynk Widmar & Benjamin M. Gramig, 2018. "Presentation matters: Number of attributes presented impacts estimated preferences," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 377-389, March.
    6. Menegaki, Angeliki, N. & Olsen, Søren Bøye & Tsagarakis, Konstantinos P., 2016. "Towards a common standard – A reporting checklist for web-based stated preference valuation surveys and a critique for mode surveys," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 18-50.
    7. Yixin Nong & Changbin Yin & Xiaoyan Yi & Jing Ren & Hsiaoping Chien, 2020. "Farmers’ Adoption Preferences for Sustainable Agriculture Practices in Northwest China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-13, August.
    8. PK Sarma, 2020. "Investigating Consumers Preference on Fresh Vegetables in Bangladesh: Best-Worst Scaling Approach," Agricultural Research & Technology: Open Access Journal, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 24(1), pages 15-23, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer/Household Economics; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness
    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices

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