Does Food Processing Mitigate Consumers’ Concerns about Crops Grown with Recycled Water?
Date
2018-09
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Applied Economics and Statistics, University of Delaware, Newark, DE.
Abstract
This paper presents results of a field experiment designed to evaluate whether food processing
alleviates consumers’ concerns about crops grown with recycled water. Recycled water has
emerged as a safe and cost-effective way to increase supplies of irrigation water. However,
adoption of recycled water by U.S. agricultural producers has been modest, in part, because of
concerns that consumers will be reluctant to accept recycled water for uses that involve
ingestion or personal contact. Therefore, both policymakers and food producers must understand
how consumers’ aversion to recycled water can be mitigated, especially when the products are
safe. To date, most of the existing literature has focused on fresh food, yet our results suggest
that, for food, simple processing such as drying or liquefying can relieve some of consumers’
concern about use of recycled irrigation water. We find that consumers of processed foods are
indifferent between irrigation with recycled and conventional water, however, they are less
willing to pay for fresh foods irrigated with recycled water relative to conventional water. We
also find that the demographic and behavioral characteristics tested in the experiment mostly had
no statistically significant effect. The one exception is age—older consumers are less likely than
younger ones to purchase processed foods irrigated with recycled water. Our analysis further
reveals that informational nudges that provide consumers with messages about benefits, risks,
and both the benefits and risks of using recycled water have no statistically significant effect on
consumers’ willingness to pay for fresh and processed foods irrigated with recycled water
relative to a no-information control group.
Description
Keywords
Water reuse, Recycled water, Field experiments, Cosumer willingness to pay, Food labeling