Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
J Dairy Sci. 2010 Nov;93(11):5503-8. doi: 10.3168/jds.2010-3088.
The dairy industry in the United States is amidst a long-running trend toward fewer, larger dairy farms. This development has created a backlash in some communities over concerns such as odor, waste management, and environmental degradation. Separately, anaerobic digestion has advanced as a waste management technology that potentially offers solutions to some of these issues, providing odor control and a combustible biogas among other things. These digesters require significant capital investments. Voluntary consumer premiums for the renewable energy produced have been used in some instances as a means to move adoption of such systems toward financial feasibility. This project employed a survey to measure Ohio consumers' willingness to pay a premium for renewable energy produced by anaerobic digesters on dairy farms. Cluster analysis was used to segment consumers by willingness to pay, age, education, income, self-identified political inclination, and a composite variable that served as a proxy for respondents' environmental stewardship. Four distinctive groups emerged from the data. Older, less educated respondents were found to have the least amount of support for digesters on dairy farms, whereas politically liberal, environmentally proactive respondents demonstrated the strongest support. Well-educated, affluent respondents and young respondents fell between these 2 groups. Most large dairy farms are generally met with fairly negative responses from their local communities; in contrast, this research finds some popular support for anaerobic digestion technology. Going forward, establishing a positive link between support for anaerobic digesters and for their use on large dairies could open up a new route for less-contested large dairy farm developments. Evaluation of community demographics could become an important part of finding an optimal location for a large dairy farm.
美国的乳制品行业正处于奶牛场数量减少、规模扩大的长期趋势中。这一发展在一些社区引起了强烈反对，原因包括气味、废物管理和环境恶化等问题。另一方面，厌氧消化作为一种废物管理技术已经取得了进展，它为解决其中的一些问题提供了可能的解决方案，例如气味控制和可燃沼气等。这些消化器需要大量的资本投资。在某些情况下，为可再生能源生产提供自愿的消费者溢价已被用作推动此类系统实现财务可行性的一种手段。本项目采用调查来衡量俄亥俄州消费者对奶牛场厌氧消化器生产的可再生能源支付溢价的意愿。聚类分析用于根据支付意愿、年龄、教育程度、收入、自我认定的政治倾向以及作为受访者环境管理代理的综合变量对消费者进行细分。从数据中得出了四个不同的群体。研究发现，年龄较大、教育程度较低的受访者对奶牛场的消化器支持程度最低，而政治上自由派、积极环保的受访者则表现出最强的支持。受过良好教育、富裕的受访者和年轻的受访者则处于这两个群体之间。大多数大型奶牛场通常会受到当地社区的负面反应；相比之下，这项研究发现，一些人对厌氧消化技术持支持态度。展望未来，在支持厌氧消化器及其在大型奶牛场的使用之间建立积极联系，可能为减少争议的大型奶牛场发展开辟新途径。评估社区人口统计数据可能成为寻找大型奶牛场最佳位置的重要组成部分。
