| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
SALAZAR R・A・C Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, College of Asia Pacific Studies, professor, アジア太平洋学部, 教授 (40341614)
XIN XU Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, College of Asia Pacific Studies, Associate professor, アジア太平洋学部, 助教授 (10331109)
ISHII Yuka Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, College of Asia Pacific Studies, Associate professor, アジア太平洋学部, 助教授 (20319487)
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| Research Abstract |
This research project focuses on the Asia Pacific region and covers four components : the trend of the world organic food trade, econometric analysis of consumers' preferences and willingness to pay for the private and public attributes of organic foods, policies and institutions on organic food industry, and socio-economic and environmental impacts of organic food trade on community development.
The study finds that income growth, increased health concern, taste change, and environmental awareness in Western countries during the late 1990s were the key contributing factors that have transformed the small and local organic food markets into a modern organic food industry. In the later period, significant changes in the development of the organic food industry was mainly brought about by business expansions of multinational retail sales, the gradual change in consumer diets, and the integration of the processing and retail sector in the U.S., Japan, and the EU.
The econometric analysis on
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consumer preferences and willingness to pay for organic foods in Beijing, Manila, Bangkok, and Tokyo based on the closed-ended CVM finds that the respondents' maximum willingness-to-pay (MWTP) for organic vegetables was about 200%-400% higher than the ordinary vegetables. The MWTP was mainly for the private attributes or organic foods as there were only 1.3-6 percent of respondents indicating their willingness to pay for the social and environmental attributes of the organic product. The variables that were significant in the model include: bid price, frequency of purchasing vegetables, carefulness of washing vegetables, proportion of total household food expenditure spent on vegetables, education level, marital status, income, frequency of having meals at home, having a baby in the household, gender, age, and employment.
The analysis on the socio-economic and environmental impacts of global organic food trade on community development in Asian countries finds organic and other environmentally friendly agricultural practices also have the potential to bring about positive socio-economic and environmental benefits in line with sustainable development to farmers and communities. The technologies, institutional environments, and local organizations that facilitate the shift toward more sustainable forms of agriculture were observed in many countries in the region. Unfortunately, the spread of sustainable agriculture have been constrained by inappropriate policies and policy processes. Less
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