Conservation of Biodiversity and Its Value in Agricultural Products
2014
Mitsuyasu, Yabe | Takashi, Hayashi | Bunei, Nishimura | Binhong, Sun
Biodiversity is one of the important aspects of Agricultural Heritage Systems and some consumers might be willing to pay a higher price for agricultural commodities that are produced in a way that conserves biodiversity. If so, whether can market-oriented policies to promote adding the value of biodiversity to agricultural products be used to conserve biodiversity? Our study focuses on consumer reactions to “life brand” product, which is labeled as “Stork-raising rice” in Toyooka City in Japan, produced environmentally-friendly agricultural practices for the revival of extinct stork. Using data of choice experiment and Latent Segment model, we analyzed whether these agricultural products can achieve higher market prices. The results showed that consumer, who had knowledge that stork populations had been revived because of changes in agricultural practice, are willing to buy expensive rice that improve biodiversity conservation for stork. However, consumers who bought this rice because of a preference for reduced-pesticide or organic food, without knowledge of revived stork history, were not willing to do so. The majority of agricultural product consumers in Japan are this type of consumer. Thus, the promotion of biodiversity conservation by only “life brand” agricultural products is not enough. Therefore, government support and public activities are indispensable for biodiversity conservation.
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