Does Food Processing Mitigate Consumers’ Concerns about Crops Grown with Recycled Water?
| Author(s) | Savchenko, Olesya M. | |
| Author(s) | Li, Tongzhe | |
| Author(s) | Kecinski, Maik | |
| Author(s) | Messer, Kent D. | |
| Date Accessioned | 2018-10-03T15:54:42Z | |
| Date Available | 2018-10-03T15:54:42Z | |
| Publication Date | 2018-09 | |
| 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. | en_US |
| Sponsor | Funding support for this research was provided by the U.S Department of Agriculture National Institute for Food and Agriculture. The authors acknowledge the support of James Geisler, Julia Parker, Francesca Piccone, Kaitlynn Ritchie, Maddi Valinski, and Huidong Xu for their assistance administering the field experiment. | en_US |
| URL | http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/23869 | |
| Publisher | Department of Applied Economics and Statistics, University of Delaware, Newark, DE. | en_US |
| Part of Series | APEC Research Reports;RR18-09 | |
| Keywords | Water reuse | en_US |
| Keywords | Recycled water | en_US |
| Keywords | Field experiments | en_US |
| Keywords | Cosumer willingness to pay | en_US |
| Keywords | Food labeling | en_US |
| Title | Does Food Processing Mitigate Consumers’ Concerns about Crops Grown with Recycled Water? | en_US |
| Type | Working Paper | en_US |