Estimation of Consumers’ Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Organic Pork in China

Abstract

Organic food plays an important role in improving food safety and environmental sustainability. Although organic food has received a lot of attention in China, the organic market is still developing slowly. China is the largest pork consumer in the world; it is imperative to actively develop the organic food industry in China, especially the organic pork industry. The production of organic products and the activation of the certification system can be determined by consumers' willingness to pay. This paper estimated Chinese consumers' preferences and willingness to pay for the attributes of pork, focusing on animal welfare and organic feed certification. A choice experiment was conducted to investigate Chinese consumers' preferences. This paper also compared the consumers' willingness to pay for organic-certified pork by classifying consumers according to their awareness and reliability for organic certification. The estimated results revealed that consumers are willing to pay the highest price premium for the attribute of the origin of China, followed by the attributes of organic feed, the origin of Europe, and animal welfare. This paper also found that increasing consumers' awareness and reliability toward organic certification could draw consumers' demand for organic pork, which suggests raising awareness is one of the effective policy alternatives for developing and activiting the market of organic food in China.