No abstract

This study develops a theoretical framework of heterogeneous consumers and producers and imperfectly competitive food companies to analyse the system-wide market and welfare effects of food fraud in the form of food adulteration and mislabelling. The results show that, while the price impacts of food fraud are productspecific with the equilibrium prices of high-quality and low-quality products moving in different directions, the equilibrium quantities depend on the relative magnitude of the demand and supply effects of food fraud. Regarding the welfare effects of food fraud, they are shown to be highly asymmetric across different consumers and producers. In addition to enabling the disaggregation of the welfare effects of food fraud, the explicit consideration of agent heterogeneity, asymmetries in the probability of fraud detection and the endogeneity of the producer quality choices also enables the derivation of a key result of this study; contrary to what is traditionally believed, both low-quality and high-quality producers can have economic incentives to commit fraud. The group that is more likely to cheat is determined by the social attitudes towards fraudulent behaviour, the enforcement policy parameters and the relative magnitude of the demand and supply effects of food fraud. A comparison of the market effects of mislabelling and food adulteration reveals that, while the equilibrium quantity of the high-quality product is higher in the presence of mislabelling, producers are more likely to mislabel than adulterate their products.

This study uses a laboratory experiment to examine whether prior knowledge of food fraud persistently affects consumer behavior. We invited regular consumers of olive oil to participate in an olive oil valuation experiment. We used a within-subject design to compare consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for Italian extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) before and after receiving information about labeling scandals in the Italian olive oil industry. After the first round of bidding, but before introducing information about labeling scandals or otherwise mentioning food fraud, we surveyed participants about whether they had heard of food fraud. Results indicate that prior knowledge of food fraud plays an important role in explaining consumers’ valuation behavior, both in the pre-information baseline bidding and in how they update their valuation in response to information about a food fraud scandal. Consumers who reported prior knowledge of food fraud partially accounted for the possibility of food fraud in their initial pre-information valuation, submitting significantly lower bids than participants who did not report prior knowledge. They also reacted less to olive oil fraud information than consumers who reported no prior knowledge of food fraud. Findings of this study highlight the potential long-term consequences of increasing consumer awareness of food fraud incidents on consumer WTP for products in industries that have experienced food fraud scandals.

Antimicrobial resistance, which decreases the efficacy of antibiotics and other antimicrobials, has led to concerns about the use of antibiotics in livestock production. Consumers play an important role in influencing producers’ decisions about the use of antimicrobials through their choices in the marketplace, which are driven by attitudes toward these practices. This study examines consumers’ levels of concern about (and acceptance of) the use of antibiotics in livestock production for four objectives: to treat, control, and prevent infections, and to promote growth. Results reveal that the majority of respondents were highly concerned about antibiotic use to promote growth in livestock production and considered this use to be unacceptable. Participants with higher objective knowledge of antibiotic resistance and antibiotic use in livestock production were more likely to accept antibiotic use to treat and control disease, but less likely to accept its use to prevent disease or to promote growth. Participants with high levels of trust in the livestock industry were more likely to accept antibiotic use to control and prevent infections and to be neutral about antibiotic use to promote growth in food animals. Respondents who believed that antibiotic use decreases animal welfare were more likely to be very concerned about antibiotic use to treat, prevent, and control disease, and less likely to accept antibiotic use to treat diseases in food animals. The study findings should be of interest to producers considering the adoption of sustainable technologies and production practices, food retailers making procurement decisions, and policymakers identifying policies that can alleviate antimicrobial resistance in the agri-food sector.

Rural-urban adult migration, mainly adult male migration makes heavy demand on all family members, but especially on children who are left behind in rural area to shoulder the responsibility of agriculture production and food security. Labor shortage due to rural-urban adult migration may mean that children in rural area often have to face tighter time schedules and patterns of time use and human energy inputs required in agriculture production. The study reveals the impact of rural-urban migration on rural children. In this study, sample is restricted to households that own and/or operate agricultural land in rural area. A purposive sampling is adopted to select villages and this research work covers 500 sample households. The study is based on link between rural-urban migration of adult persons and child labor in rural area. The empirical result shows that an additional rural migrant of a household increases the probability of having child worker in that household by approximately 51%. In addition, this study identifies that children of migrant households receive less preventive health care in their infancy. The study also shows that an additional adult worker of a household increases the probability of having child worker in that household by 29%. For this reason, this study supports the hypothesis that children are the last economic resource of a household.