Food System Dynamics (E-Journals)
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Prospective Cultivation Area of Field Peas Used in Animal Meat Substitutes in the EU
Get PDFMeat alternatives from leguminous raw materials are expected to play an increasing role in human nutrition. Additional global cultivation areas and additional general cultivation potential for peas as raw material for meat substitutes are projected to increase. The aim of the present study is to estimate the prospective area of peas for pea-based meat alternatives in the EU within a simple model calculation. With a consumption share of 2 % for pea‐based meat alternatives in the EU, the effects on the production volume and pea cultivation area would remain relatively small. With an increased consumption share of pea‐based meat alternatives of 12.5 % the pea cultivation area would rise to almost 100 % compared to the current cultivated area. By the third scenario with a consumption of 40 % pea-based meat, the cultivated area would triple. However, the additional share of the pea cultivation area in the total arable area in the EU would be only a small additional increase. Thus, increased pea cultivation would only have minor effects on competition for agricultural land. If pea-meat replaced animal meat, land used for animal feed production would become available
Motivations for Sustainable Consumption: The Case of Vegetables
Get PDFAccording to the World Health Organization a diet high in vegetables may reduce the risk of coronary heart diseases, stroke, and certain types of cancer. In addition, vegetables have lower carbon footprints than most other foods. The main objective in this paper is to find drivers behind vegetable consumption, with emphasis on health and environmental motivation. We used the theory of planned behavior together with direct acyclic graphs as a theoretical basis. The empirical analysis applied the graded response model and bounded beta regression with survey data from 2019. The main results show that health attitude is a stronger motivator for vegetable consumption than environmental attitudes
Factors Influencing Consumers’ Perceptions of Safety Risk of Fresh Domestic Tomato in Albania-a Multinomial Econometric Approach
Get PDFThis study deals with the consumers' perceived risk and its determinants for fresh tomatoes in Albania. Survey data are analyzed using ordered logistic regression.Consumers associate a high level of benefits with the consumption of fresh tomatoes but have severe doubts about food safety and rate the average level of food safety risk as high as 6.66 on a scale from 0 to 10.Consumers' knowledge of food safety, their perceptions about the reliability of food safety information, the government's ability to ensure safety, negative experiences with tomato consumption, consumer age, and family size are key determinants of perceived food risk, while gender, education, and income did not prove to be significant. The results provide the basis for appropriate actions by government and food system actors in improving food safety and consumers‘ trust in food safety assurance
Pricing Perishables: Robust Price Assurance
Get PDFAs perishable products are worthless at end-of-life, for a given supply prices are often dynamically adjusted to ensure inventory is exhausted at end-of-life. When consumers expect such price reductions, they may strategically time their purchases. These two conditions pose a complex problem for pricing. Given inventory, cost of production is sunk. Thus, the dynamic path for prices must be set to maximize revenues with an eye on inventory take-down as well as to discourage strategic behavior. This problem is further challenged when prices and the extent of consumer strategic behavior are uncertain. This paper presents an approach for pricing a set of perishable products that are highly substitutable, yet differentiated to target a set of consumer segments. We propose and analyze a price assurance scheme as a solution to the strategic behavior of consumers and price uncertainty. We present and evaluate our price assurance approach by comparing two price assurance schemes: i) ex-post price assurance, and ii) ex-ante price assurance to risk neutral dynamic pricing without regard for consumer strategic behavior. These approaches have not to our knowledge been previously considered in our setting of perishables, uncertain consumer strategic behavior, and price uncertainty. Our numerical experiments show that our robust optimization model prevents loss when a firm encounters the worst-case demand and outperforms a risk neutral pricing model. Comparison across our different pricing schemes provides conditions under which particular schemes may dominate others
Consumers (Dis)Preference for Bitterness in Extra Virgin Olive Oil: A Field Experiment
Get PDFGlobally, bitterness in food is not a preferred attribute by consumers, for several reasons. In the case of Extra Virgin Olive Oil its presence is fundamental as it is a healthiness indicator, being strictly linked to the antioxidant content. The current study aimed to assess the extent of Italian consumers’ preferences for bitterness taste of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Real choices made by shoppers at the store shelf of a hypermarket were recorded and then compared with the selected Extra Virgin Olive Oil sensory profiles evaluated by a professional panel. Findings reveal that bitterness exerts a negative willingness to pay equal to -1.18 €/liter. Furthermore, consumers tend to overestimate the perception of Extra Virgin Olive Oil bitterness compared to sensory experts. Results provide new evidences of consumer preferences for sweet sensory profile of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and bitter aversion
Bioceres S.A: Ag Biotechnology Expansion
Get PDFIn this case we present an investment decision-making situation in which a stockholder of an Argentine Agribusiness Biotechnology company has to analyze the company’s strategy and decide if he will further invest in the firm. The company name is Bioceres; it is a fully integrated crop productivity provider in the areas of seed traits, biologicals, molecular farming and metabolic engineering. It has annual revenues of around 150 million dollars, and net losses of 10 million dollars. In the near future Bioceres will launch, at a global scale, its leading technology called HB4®, which provides drought and salinity tolerance to crops such as soybeans, alfalfa and wheat. By early 2019 Bioceres is intending to go public in the American stock market
Market and Institutional Limits in Supplying Animal Welfare: some Conceptual Thoughts for Future Agricultural Economic Research
Get PDFProviding adequate levels of farm animal welfare is a challenge in today’s societies. Economic research indicates that neither market valuation for credence attributes in opaque markets, nor transparency improved market valuation with labelling schemes, nor non-market valuation in hypothetical markets to consider non-use values, nor non-monetary valuation in an ethical context are suitable to capture the value dimensions of farm animal welfare adequately. Monetary and non-monetary valuation problems stem from the complex concept of farm animal welfare and ethical challenges in utilitarian and anthropocentric approaches. Animal centred valuation of farm animal welfare is suggested as one future venue of economic research conditioned on overcoming speciesism
Consumers’ Food Waste Knowledge in Austria
Get PDFIn times of increasing environmental awareness, the topic of food waste receives a lot of attention from practitioners and scholars alike. In this study, we analyze how well-informed Austrian consumers regard food waste and what factors might influence this knowledge. In a consumer survey (n = 470), we examined consumer food and food handling knowledge, cooking skills, place of residence, personal ties to agriculture, engagement in initiatives against food waste, and their effect on food waste knowledge. To understand what effect social desirability mighthave on participants’ answers, we administered the survey in both online and face-to-face settings. Amongst others, our findings suggest a positive relationship between knowledge about food and food handling andknowledge about food waste prevention as well as a social desirability bias in reporting one’s own knowledge about food waste prevention. We could not find a statistically significant relationship between food and food handling knowledge, and food waste knowledge. Furthermore, we did not find evidence that a personal connection to agriculture or a rural place of residence leads to better food waste knowledge. Finally, the unexpected influence of cooking skills is at least surprising to a certain extent. We conclude this study by outlining potential areas for future research as well as managerial implications
A Profit Analysis of Indonesia’s Cananga Essential Oil Production Using System Dynamics
Get PDFCananga essential oil is a type of oil extracted by distillation from freshly-picked cananga flowers. Cananga oil is of a high economic value for its use as fragrances and flavors. In Indonesia, cananga essential oil is majorly produced by small and medium distillers. The most prominent barrier to cananga essential oil production in Indonesia is the fluctuation in its price. This price fluctuation is responsible for the decrease in profits earned by distillers. The aim of this research was to develop a system dynamics model to maximize profits in the cananga essential oil production in Indonesia. A system dynamics approach was employed to figure out the effect of some variables on cananga essential oil production in relation to profits and the interaction of such variables with each other. The scenarios examined in this system dynamics model include to increase the number of distillers, to decrease the fuel expenses, and a combination of both.This research assumed that a change in parameter will be able to increase profits from the cananga essential oil production in Indonesia over the next five years. The results show that increasing the number of distillers and decreasing the fuel expenses have been able to increase cananga essential oil production average by 20% and profits by 62%
What Drives Farmers’ Decisions to Invest? The Role of Research Engagement, Information Collection and Type of Farm
Get PDFThe present paper develops a framework for modeling and explaining the decisions of farmers for realizing investments aimed at improving the operation of their holdings. The empirical analysis is conducted in Greece on 777 farmers of arable and orchard crops. The results prioritize the significance of farmers’ research engagement and information collection and show that there is a systematic difference between the realized investments between arable crops and orchard farmers, as the latter seem to invest more in their holdings. Finally, the paper ends up with a clustering exercise, in order to distinguish three groups of farmers which could be used as a means for shaping more tailored policy initiatives