The Intrinsic and Instrumental Values of Blockchain to Provide Beef Traceability in Hong Kong, South Korea, and the United States.

Although previous research has identified that consumers are willing to pay for traceability, it remains unknown which types of traceability information might have the highest value, and whether consumers have an intrinsic value for blockchain technology above and beyond the instrumental value of providing traceability. A choice experiment was conducted with over 1500 consumers in Hong Kong, South Korea, and the U.S.

Egg producer attitudes and expectations regarding the transition to cage-free production: a mixed-methods approach.

Several cage-free egg mandates and retailer pledge deadlines are set to take effect in January 2026. Yet it is unknown whether producers can transition to cage-free production at a rate commensurate with these goals. This study uses qualitative and quantitative data from 2 U.

Measuring sustainable consumer food purchasing and behavior.

Consumer food purchasing and willingness to adopt a sustainable healthy diet (SHD) is a key factor affecting the sustainability of the entire food system. Studies have developed scales to measure consumer preferences for particular consumption patterns, while others have sought to empirically define the multiple dimensions of a sustainable food system (environmental, social, economic, etc.).

Most plant-based meat alternative buyers also buy meat: an analysis of household demographics, habit formation, and buying behavior among meat alternative buyers.

The promise of novel plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) to lessen the health and environmental impacts of meat consumption ultimately depend on market acceptance and the extent to which they displace meat in consumers' diets. We use household scanner data to provide an in-depth analysis of consumers' PBMA buying behaviors. PBMAs buyers tend to be young, single, female, college educated, employed, higher income, and non-white.

U.S. perspective: Meat demand outdoes meat avoidance.

Despite ample discussion of health, environment, and animal welfare effects of meat production and consumption, this article documents past, current, and projected consumption patterns reflecting robust meat demand in the United States. There is some evidence of meat avoidance behavior among a segment of the population, including younger, higher educated, higher income consumers in the Western United States. At the same time, the majority of U.

Unscrambling U.S. egg supply chains amid COVID-19.

This article investigates how the shift from food-away-from-home and towards food-at-home at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the U.S. egg industry.

Meat Demand Monitor during COVID-19.

Meat products represent a significant share of US consumer food expenditures. The COVID-19 pandemic directly impacted both demand and supply of US beef and pork products for a prolonged period, resulting in a myriad of economic impacts. The complex disruptions create significant challenges in isolating and inferring consumer-demand changes from lagged secondary data.

Farmer and farm worker illnesses and deaths from COVID-19 and impacts on agricultural output.

Farmers and farm workers are critical to the secure supply of food, yet this population is potentially at high risk to acquire COVID-19. This study estimates the prevalence of COVID-19 among farmers and farmworkers in the United States by coupling county-level data on the number of farm workers relative to the general population with data on confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths. In the 13 month period since the start of the pandemic (from March 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021), the estimated cumulative number of COVID-19 cases (deaths) was 329,031 (6,166) among agricultural producers, 170,137 (2,969) among hired agricultural workers, 202,902 (3,812) among unpaid agricultural workers, and 27,223 (459) among migrant agricultural workers.

Food consumption behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We conducted an online consumer survey in May 2020 in two major metropolitan areas in the United States to investigate food shopping behaviors and consumption during the pandemic lockdown caused by COVID-19. The results of this study parallel many of the headlines in the popular press at the time. We found that about three-quarters of respondents were simply buying the food they could get due to out of stock situations and about half the participants bought more food than usual.

Who practices urban agriculture? An empirical analysis of participation before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) disrupted the food system motivating discussions about moving from a dependence on long food supply channels toward shorter local supply channels, including urban agriculture. This study examines two central questions regarding the adoption of urban agriculture practices at the household level during the COVID-19 pandemic: whether the outbreak of the novel coronavirus elicited participation in urban agriculture (e.g.

Beef and Pork Marketing Margins and Price Spreads during COVID-19.

COVID-19-related disruptions led to a historic rise in the spread between livestock and wholesale meat prices. Concerns about concentration and allegations of anticompetitive behavior have led to several inquiries and civil suits by the U.S.

Consumer beliefs about healthy foods and diets.

Background: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has begun a public process to redefine how companies are allowed to use the term "healthy" on food packages.

Consumer preferences for and beliefs about slow growth chicken.

Improvements in genetics, feed, and housing have dramatically reduced the time required for broilers to reach market weight. However, some advocacy organizations have argued that the improvements in productivity have been accompanied by reductions in animal welfare and meat quality, prompting retailers to consider policies that either set a minimum number of days of production or require slower-growing heritage breeds. The overriding purpose of this project is to determine the market potential and consumer willingness-to-pay for chicken breast with different labels, with primary focus on slow growth labels.

Mandatory labels can improve attitudes toward genetically engineered food.

The prospect of state and federal laws mandating labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food has prompted vigorous debate about the consequences of the policy on consumer attitudes toward these technologies. There has been substantial debate over whether mandated labels might increase or decrease consumer aversion toward genetic engineering. This research aims to help resolve this issue using a data set containing more than 7800 observations that measures levels of opposition in a national control group compared to levels in Vermont, the only U.

Preference evaluation of ground beef by untrained subjects with three levels of finely textured beef.

After receiving bad publicity in 2012 and being removed from many ground beef products, finely textured beef (referred to as 'pink slime' by some) is making a comeback. Some of its proponents argue that consumers prefer ground beef containing finely textured beef, but no objective scientific party has tested this claim-that is the purpose of the present study. Over 200 untrained subjects participated in a sensory analysis in which they tasted one ground beef sample with no finely textured beef, another with 15% finely textured beef (by weight), and another with more than 15%.

What consumers don't know about genetically modified food, and how that affects beliefs.

In the debates surrounding biotechnology and genetically modified (GM) food, data from consumer polls are often presented as evidence for precaution and labeling. But how much do consumers actually know about the issue? New data collected from a nationwide U.S.

Economic Assessment of FMDv Releases from the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility.

This study evaluates the economic consequences of hypothetical foot-and-mouth disease releases from the future National Bio and Agro Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas. Using an economic framework that estimates the impacts to agricultural firms and consumers, quantifies costs to non-agricultural activities in the epidemiologically impacted region, and assesses costs of response to the government, we find the distribution of economic impacts to be very significant. Furthermore, agricultural firms and consumers bear most of the impacts followed by the government and the regional non-agricultural firms.

Can neural activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex predict responsiveness to information? An application to egg production systems and campaign advertising.

Consumers prefer to pay low prices and increase animal welfare; however consumers are typically forced to make tradeoffs between price and animal welfare. Campaign advertising (i.e.

Neurofunctional correlates of ethical, food-related decision-making.

For consumers today, the perceived ethicality of a food's production method can be as important a purchasing consideration as its price. Still, few studies have examined how, neurofunctionally, consumers are making ethical, food-related decisions. We examined how consumers' ethical concern about a food's production method may relate to how, neurofunctionally, they make decisions whether to purchase that food.

Which biotech foods are most acceptable to the public?

New discoveries are prompting questions about which types of genetically engineered foods and applications are likely to be most accepted by the public. Results of a survey of over 1000 US consumers reveals that people prefer eating beef to eating corn or apples if the foods are not genetically engineered, but exactly the opposite is true if the foods are genetically engineered. Eating fresh food is preferred to processed, but much less so if both food types are genetically engineered.

Judging statistical models of individual decision making under risk using in- and out-of-sample criteria.

Despite the fact that conceptual models of individual decision making under risk are deterministic, attempts to econometrically estimate risk preferences require some assumption about the stochastic nature of choice. Unfortunately, the consequences of making different assumptions are, at present, unclear. In this paper, we compare three popular error specifications (Fechner, contextual utility, and Luce error) for three different preference functionals (expected utility, rank-dependent utility, and a mixture of those two) using in- and out-of-sample selection criteria.

Robust relation between temporal discounting rates and body mass.

When given the choice between $100 today and $110 in 1 week, certain people are more likely to choose the immediate, yet smaller reward. The present study examined the relations between temporal discounting rate and body mass while accounting for important demographic variables, depressive symptoms, and behavioral inhibition and approach. After having their heights and weights measured, 100 healthy adults completed the Monetary Choice Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory-II, and the Behavioral Inhibition Scale/Behavioral Approach Scale.

Who is to blame for the rise in obesity?

We sought to determine who the public perceives as most contributing to the rise in obesity and to identify the determinants of such perceptions. A nationwide survey was conducted among 800 US individuals. Respondents were asked to place each of seven entities (food manufacturers, grocery stores, restaurants, government policies, farmers, individuals, and parents) into three categories: primarily, somewhat, and not to blame for the rise in obesity.