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Quality, Safety and Demand for Meat in Urban China

Author: WangWenZhi
Tutor: WuLaPing
School: China Agricultural University
Course: Agricultural Economics and Management
Keywords: Quality and safety Urban residents Unit value Choice experiments Media information
CLC: F203
Type: PhD thesis
Year: 2014
Downloads: 8
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Abstract

Urban residents go ahead of the rural residents in terms of income level and consumption concept and they pay significantly more attention to food quality and safety because of the developing society and improving income. As a very important part in urban residents’dietary, meat is playing a vital role in their food consumption. Therefore, in the context of food quality and safety, this study focused on urban consumers’meat demand. The specific contents are as follows:(1) The characteristics of urban residents’ demand for meat and status of meat quality and safety in our country;(2) Estimation of quality effect in urban consumers’meat demand;(3) Consumers’ perceptions of, preference and willingness to pay for selected quality and safety attributes in meat in urban China;(4) The impact of food safety information on meat demand of urban residents.Based on the statistical analysis of meat demand characteristics and case study about food safety incidents, the results show that the demand quantity and expenditure were rising while the share of food expenditure and total expenditure were declining. The higher level of income, the lower the meat expenditure share of food expenditure. The feature of consumers demand for meat to some extent reflected that urban residents turn attention from meat quantity to quality and safety.Using the aggregate data collected through field survey, the quality effect and the biases between market price elasticity and the unit value elasticity of urban consumers meat demand were evaluated by the unit value model. Conclusions show that the quality effect was significantly smaller compared with the expenditure and price elasticity, which implied that the quality level of meat demand of urban residents was still very low. The elasticity obtained from unit value overestimated market price elasticity, which meant there were significant biases between market price elasticity and the unit value elasticity. The biases was caused by the quality factor of urban consumers’meat demand.The Choice Experiments Theory was introduced by this study to design questionnaire that was used to get survey data. Then using the Random Parameter Logit (RPL) and Latent Class Model (LCM), the study empirically measured urban consumers perceptions of, preference and willingness to pay for food quality and safety attributes in pork such as price, brand,"Green Food" certification, feed additive information label and animal welfare. The statistical analysis results suggest that urban residents had poor cognition on these selected attributes while the RPL results show that consumers had positive and significant preference for them. Residents had the highest willingness-to-pay (WTP) for "Green" certification, followed by brand and feed additive information label, while the WTP for animal welfare was the lowest. The LCM results imply that residents’preference for the attributes was heterogeneous between different classes of consumers. The "Certification Conscious" class had the highest WTP for "Green Food" while "Brand Lovers" preferred well-known brands.The study newly created the information variable by counting news and articles related to food safety and quality on public media and tested the impact of food safety information on urban residents’demand for meat using the LA/AIDS model based on the provincial panel data. Results suggest that media attention to food safety had a small, but significant impact on urban consumers’ meat demand. Adding the safety information variable to the LA/AIDS enlarged the absolute value of price elasticity for all the kind of meat, enlarged the expenditure elasticity for meat that was necessity, decreased the expenditure elasticity for meat that was luxury. Safety information had negative effect on the demand for the meat that the information focused on, but cross effects of the information depended on the substitution effects between the two kinds of meat.Based on the above conclusions, the following suggestions were proposed. The legislation and regulation that would strengthen food quality and safety need to be improved; diversification of meat products need to be promoted to meet the diverse needs of residents; urban residents’cognitive level and consciousness about meat quality and safety should to be strengthened; reliability and credibility of famous brands and food certifications, which are considered as the traditional identities of food quality and safety should be enhanced; more concerns and promotions with the emerging attributes such as animal welfare and feed additive information label which are reflecting food quality and safety are needed; guidance and supervision of the media reports on food quality and safety should be improved.

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